Take a book out and have a look

Neither Here,
Nor There

It’s Monday morning, the alarm has gone off – twice – and Billy’s late for work.

He races across the road to catch the bus without looking and… then William “Billy” Geraint Mortimer is dead, although he’s not altogether gone.

He’s sent back, as a ghost you might say, to prove himself one way or another. Only that’s not all there is to it. Oh no, not at all.

He gets attached to a dog, a rather special dog, and between them they have to track down an escaped bad-boy.

Now, is that all there is to it?

Nope.

Turns out the position is a permanent one... and the boss, well, he’s an interesting character called the Adjudicator.

Oh, and there are rules… but no rulebook.

Just on-the-job training, which makes the afterlife that little bit more interesting.

Good Intentions

The road to hell is paved with them, right?

For the perpetrator, yes, of course it is. But for the victims there is only purgatory; an eternity of wandering with neither sight nor sound of any other.

When people die, apparently by suicide, ahead of their time, it is lamentable but they are destined for purgatory. No right of appeal, no reset button, no hope.

When more and more people die, apparently by suicide, it becomes an issue for Billy and Digger.

Even more so when it affects Billy's "flesh and blood", "still amongst the living", friends.

When a friend of Digger's turns up in the reception area and is destined to enter purgatory, Digger keeps him safe by inviting him to assist in the investigation.

Then the investigating gets serious as they search for the well-intentioned perpetrator.

Resurrection

Orphaned when his father was lost on a mission to test an experimental spacecraft and his mother committed suicide, Tommy was looking for a better life.

A life away from the military lifestyle.

On the point of ‘acquiring’ the last component for his latest robotics project which would set him up for life, his plans are exposed to the military police of the base – which he has infiltrated to get them to make what he needs – who promptly investigate who he is by means of his id card.

An id card he didn’t have when he entered the base!

It identifies him as an apprentice on the salvage vessel “Resurrection”; due to depart in the very near future.

Once on board, he discovers the truth about the id card, its polymorphic and sentient AI capabilities and then, his adventuring truly begins!

Renegade

Being on the run is fun... for a while.

Then you realise, it’s not all as ‘romantic’ as you imagined. Resources, already difficult to find, are much scarcer when you have to negotiate for them both disadvantaged by distance and by your status on the ‘wanted’ list.

So, what do you do? You clutch at any straws offered to you.

In this case, it means a visit to the Ocean planet – Okeanos – to perform a scavenger hunt on an ocean mining platform the size of a small city.

Storm tossed seas and diving to the depths of the ocean is not the only excitement in store for them.

Unexpected company, both on and off the mining platform, keeps the entire crew on their toes.

Retribution

Being pursued by Colonel Sullivan, head of the Galactic Corporate Military’s Science Division, is tedious although it serves to keep the crew of the Resurrection on their toes.

But, that’s not the biggest problem to be considered.

There’s the fact that said military division has unleashed murderous metallic monsters on the Galaxy and the colonel is determined to keep them safe.

The price of their safety is the lives of any spacefaring vessels that the unleashed murderers encounter. But, it turns out, the encounters aren’t all random. The wee monsters are collecting materials to enable them to spawn, propagate, reproduce and basically multiply.

For the crew of the Resurrection, enough is enough and they are determined to deliver some much needed retribution.

Revelations

Not everything hidden away is deadly serious. As an adventurous eighteenth birthday on shore leave proves.

But, then again, some buried memories have to be disinterred for all to see despite their horrific nature.

Like those memories of when he had been alone and found his mother sinking into a deep, hot, red-tainted bath.

When he took on the burden of guilt after she died.

But other revelations, also family related, are so much more terrifying.

And Tommy’s not the only one with issues that need to be brought out into the light for scrutiny.

It is a time for many truths and not all of them will be pleasant

Resolution

Problems, problems, problems...

And they won’t just go away.

The colonel is relentless, even more so after the dose of retribution dished out by the Resurrection and her crew. And her fury is only matched by the desperation of the actions she takes in pursuit of her goal.

Whatever the problem is, it needs resolution to make it disappear, doesn’t it?

Of course, if it was that simple, the problems wouldn’t be such a big deal. But the price to be paid for some problems to permanently disappear, is very high indeed.

And then there’s the possibility that the decision for the necessary action to acquire resolution is beyond your control.

What to do then?

Resistance

People have been fighting against the Galactic Corporate for centuries, but those efforts have been limited to a resistance mentality backed up by guerilla tactics.

Since the destruction of New Caledonia, the surviving New Caledonians have been spearheading those efforts.

But they are plagued by treachery spawned from the same selfish interest in personal gain.

Many would maintain the status quo, and are horrified when Namustria’s ruler is killed and the entire planet is thrown into chaos.

Freedom fighters emerge and take on the local garrisons. The battle on the ground soon to be overshadowed by the battle between opposing forces fighting in the heavens above the planet.

Resistance, once useful, has outlived its purpose.

Rebellion

It began quietly, as these things usually do.

Namustria rose up in rebellion, and poked a rather large stick at the nest of vipers known as the Galatic Corporate. They responded with force, which was somewhat swiftly disposed of, and so the planet was liberated.

The leaders of the rebel forces gathered on Temeria to hold council and decide the future actions of their forces, and when they were due to leave a squadron of heavily-armed scout ships came to attack their transports as they left to make their preparations.

They were defended by just four shuttles, and one of those was a barely-functional, remote-controlled, shell.

This was the long-awaited catalyst for the rebellion to begin.

This was the long-awaited catalyst for the rebellion to begin.