Doc Sherwood
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Shapeshifters, Chapter One
In the beleaguered city of Nottingham it was the height of day, but a preternatural still reigned over the streets. Invasion had banished traffic and emptied offices. Now the midday sun glinted silent and unstinting from the ring of gargantuan robots that surrounded the central area already ceded to the enemy. This hush however was deceptive. Most were hard at work, from the Solidity soldiers in their outposts and watchtowers peering ceaselessly over the war-zone in search of resistance, to the ones they sought biding their time in hollows and gullies amidst the rubble, to others in the free city striving to orchestrate rebellion of their own. But all played a waiting game, with with neither action nor word disclosed the ends of their diverse secret schemes.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Shapeshifters, Chapter Two
Interplanetary space had been struck alight. Energy-emissions, the kind that looked like highways made of pulsating death, were roaring from the vanishing-point and cascading into the black yonder while deadly missiles and rockets buzzed endlessly by like outriders in their slipstream. In and out of this chaos the Flash Club ship swerved and rolled as it made its dauntless way ever onward. Neetra, who had done her homework on this galaxy’s weapons before embarking, gripped the twin handles of her steering-stick yet tighter and hollered aloud:
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Avalon, Chapter Two
Flashshadow’s talent for going quietly unseen was put under rather more of a strain at a well-lit outdoor rumbustification, but it helped that Petunia subsequent to her opening number had daintily descended the stage and taken things down a notch. Most of the guests were dancing to her pre-recorded backing-tracks, their attention safely on each other, while Petunia herself held court among just a small proportion of the party’s complement. Flashshadow, though keeping a discreet distance, looked on curiously.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Avalon, Chapter Three
The party was still only just getting started when sandstorms whipped all at once round bare ankles and legs, searchlights swept the clearing, and live music was summarily supplanted by burgeoning engine-din. Girls and boys and other creatures ceased their spirited wriggles to gape skyward at the looming pig-backed crowd-control cruiser which had elbowed itself into the airspace above them.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Target Harbour
Target Harbour was a known jumping-off point for several different solar systems where Alliance extradition-orders were not yet all they might have been. A crescent-shaped hunk of a far larger moon which exploded eons ago, its curved outer ridge was encrusted with low-rent temporary residences whose neon stained space. The towers of the taller hotels were interlinked by a monorail network, while within the great hollow of this rocky arc had collected purplish fluorescent gases which lay like the waters of a bay. Reflected upside-down in these seething depths, the gaudiness of advertisments and train-tracks and a million window-lights shone a longstanding invitation to the weary traveller whose recent deeds might preclude him from more reputable places to stay.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
The Back Garden
Overgrown twisted dominions and lurking supernatural forces had conspired to lend The Back Garden its curious nomenclature, which began life as a nickname that stuck. If some of that dread space-expanse’s mystique had faded after the vanquishing of its beldame Empress Ungus by The Four Heroes, it nevertheless afforded fearsome enough vistas for Zeldich and Grey Bag as they stepped down from the two flying jeeps which had carried them there. Progress in this place was on foot, along the tops of tendrils distorted to terrifying size which stretched tangled fingers through the black void between worlds and so bridged the spheres they ensnared. Though Grey Bag and Zeldich stood in interplanetary space they did not require oxygen-masks, for there was no cosmic vacuum in The Back Garden, just a universal moist stagnancy suggestive of cellars at midnight. This fusty fug teemed with nutrients and microbes on which thrived the gargantuan plants and the denizens that crawled and slithered among them.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Carmilla's Resolution
The conference chamber’s large circular table was ringed with seats for the humanoids, and ramps leading to elevated platforms for the jeeps. These were arranged in alternating sequence so that every member of the organization could address the forum from equal ground. Psiona launched the meeting with one last item recently gleaned from her cerebral cave.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
New Beginnings
Blaster-Track Commander, tall and muscular and upright, stood with feet planted firmly on his skateboard-sized mini-jeep which followed the downward-sliding platform at a geostationary hover. From her position a yard or so below on the elevator itself, Carmilla Neetkins let her eyes range over the lean physique encased in brilliant green spandex, the pair of photon-pistols ready in trim holsters at the breast, the cloak of royal purple flowing from strong shoulders to heels, and the golden-haired head of lofty brow and determined tapering chin.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Cycles, Chapter Three
Heroes they were. If Dylan and his command had ever been called upon to prove it, they did so in the second or two when each of the six saw with absolute clarity what route lay ahead for them now. They could neither prevail nor flee, but still, not one among them entertained for an instant any notion of throwing themselves on Harbin’s non-existent mercy. They would fight, until they could fight no more. Even in the absence of hope, that much honour they might yet do the reverend quartet they had striven in vain to save.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Issues, Chapter One
It was the sort of situation that really required name-tags, or better yet, convenient captions somehow superimposed over the veritable double splash-page of a scene. Such scattered rectangles for easy reference hanging inexplicably unsupported in space would have been much appreciated by the two warlike factions facing off, neither of which boasted a member who had the identities of all the others absolutely down.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
Heroes' Reunion
Dylan Cook of The Four Heroes was back. That same dark hair and same warm smile greeted the first well-wishers in an opulent observation-lounge attached to Prof’s sanatorium, Phoenix standing proud by the side of her love. One genius Grindo’s medical ministrations had restored to Dylan even the use of his legs, where Earth-technology would have been unable to do so, such that he walked strongly and without so much as a limp as he moved through the waiting-room shaking hands and embracing again and again. There was laughter, and many tears. To the ever-modest Prof Dylan did his best to express thanks for which mere speech could barely suffice, while James, Carmilla and Flashtease bestowed on their old friend the most joyous of welcomes home in return. Even Flashshadow, who had never met Dylan, murmurously faltered out something unintelligible but no doubt in keeping with the spirit of this happy time.
By Doc Sherwood5 years ago in Fiction
