Flashiest of Flash Fiction

Flash, goes the lightning!

The last two weeks, from a writing perspective, have flown past and not in a good way.  Deadlines are Eighth Circle of Hell.  Mix that with a science fiction theme and a flash-fiction maximum limit of 1,000 words and it’s like scrubbing with a cheese grater in a lemon-juice shower.

Until that brief, shining moment when all the random threads come together in a story that makes you salivate with wonder and hope.  Finalists will be announced November 28^th, but whatever the outcome, a new story is a new story.  Here’s the opening:

I loved search and destroy operations.

That’s the standing order for the Voll.  Their blood carries diseases and impurities.  They kidnap children to infect them.  They seduce pure men to get pregnant and coerce or rape pure women.  Command says they must be destroyed.

I agreed.

The Voll’s burrow was an old bunker—civilian, abandoned, and in ruins.  Dark and dank—the kind of thing they like.  Drones were useless in the confined space, so it was limited sat-comm with heat signatures on IR for the op.  The LT sent four of us.

We went in by the numbers.

Pretty light stuff, huh?

Thanks goes out to all the folks who participated as beta readers or offered advice!

If this doesn’t make the finalists, the entirely will be posted up for your reading enjoyment.  It may be posted up anyhow.  It’s also possible this is the start of a new novel . . . but time will tell.