And a little bit of Seeds–

At high sun, the light played off the glacier, sparkling on the melting ice. The old road bridge, closed now to all but official traffic, was the only vantage point Boran could find to watch his engineers as they marked fire points and laid remote mines. His office on the southern side of the fjord afforded a nice view of the rail marshalling yards and on the northern side the mass of the city was further to the west.

The twin cities of Cora and Munss, possessing the only bridges on the great fjord which split the continent west of the mountains, had been the first prize of the great thrust northwards. Common wisdom held that if the North were to attempt liberation, troops would stream down the glacier in tracks and powered sleds. They had come that way before, aiding the cities� battle for independence from the South.

Boran had been too young to remember the Glacier war. He did recall the smiling uncle who would take him up on the ice and keep him safe whilst he scoured the surface for wreckage. One time, when they had dared travel further than usual, they had come upon the truncated fuselage of a heavy bomber. The aeroplane had buried itself on impact, but the flow had finally thrust it back into the open. In the half enclosed cockpit the crew were crumpled over the controls. Uncle Hian had made the sign of the Silver Tower and flagged the wreck for recovery. Not long after, Boran�s favourite uncle and mother had died in the same house fire. Within days his father had everything in order and they had moved to the family home in the South.

And now he was back. The military had sought out the young engineer shortly before the cities were due to be attacked, and drafted him. It would have been a pleasure to be back in his old home, if there weren�t such a risk of being knifed or thrown over the cliffs should he stray out of the militarised areas.

The motor trike started on the third pull on its starter cord. Boran raced a gigantic lumber train, on the next bridge over, to the southern wall of the fjord. He had to get some joy in his head before his daily briefing with Commander Janssen.

Well, I think I have everything from the site copied to my PC, and I found a driver for my scanner. I’m trying to build up all the tools I need from cover disks and freeware, but it can be annoying. How come, when I put the same e-mail info into Outlook Express (which I’d rather not use) and Eudora (by all accounts a top notch piece of kit), OE can get stuff off the server and Eudora can’t?. Whatever I end up using, I’m going to take this opportunity to start a big rebuild of the site.
There hasn’t been any Seeds for almost a week, so-
[As far as this story is concerned, a digit is roughly half an inch and a span is twelve digits, ie six inches.]
The lead plane waggled its wings as it passed over the marker. The team collecting the canvas up waved back.
There were four crates, two of weapons and ammunition, two of food and supplies. The crates were wooden, so the evidence could be burnt later. Everything went into the canvas bags and was carried to the cave that had been their home for the last two nights.
Squad chief Lensman was viewing the wreckage down the valley through field glasses. “That was too large for a patrol. They were garrisonning something.” He handed the glasses to his sub.
“Target opportunity?”
“Let’s head there. It’s on the way.”
There were complaints at the increased loads after the light mountain kit they had carried on the way over. “We should of brought mules.”
“You are half mule Mov.” He was alos the most experienced mountaineer of a group made up almost entirely of mountaineers. As such, he was First Scout and blessed with a lighter load. Lensman pointed to the head of the valley. “We shall go and see where they were heading, eh? Pick a trail with good vantage and cover.”
“Aye. Right y’are.” Mov tightened the straps on his pack and picked a new half digit auto rifle from the pile. He headed down to the tree line, grabbing a shoulder bag of magazines that was tossed to him.
Young Kess, meanwhile, had fallen in love. At eight spans, the one digit long rifle was nearly as tall as its new owner. Lensman watched the squad’s youngest member assemble the monster sniper rifle. The blue banded bullets were anti personnel, capable of one shot kills at extreme ranges, red bands were armour piercing sabots. “How are you with that gun, Kess?”
“I put three hundred rounds through one in training sir. Best in my class.” They were all best in their class. They needed to be. The twenty man squad (all men, the air army’s equality hadn’t yet extended to the infantry) had to appear an army.
The packs were filled. Mov was up ahead on a vantage point, awaiting the squad. Lensman took the lead.

I’m trying to write every day, now I have all this free time, and post it the next. This is a chunk from my other ongoing project, the untitled ‘Seeds project’ story-

The silver wing reflected the sky, blending with the perfect blue at the edges. Harren could only tell where his aeroplane ended by spotting the wingtip aerial. He rotated the turret and gazed down the expanse of wing on the other side. It was all wing, this impossibility of a flyer, pushed through the upper atmosphere by six pairs of contra rotating propellers. So ugly on the ground, up here it was a slice of light high above the occupied territories.

Harren unhooked his feet from the stirrups and lowered himself into the main cabin. Jenss, the bearded, miserable top gunner nodded at him as he commented, “You have one of the finest views in the aerial military up there.”

“And none of the Northern Countries can fly anything high enough for me to shoot at.” Jenss didn’t return to his post, merely reached up and locked the turret into its aerodynamic rest position.

There was so much space in the main cabin of the flying wing. Harren had flown his first combat missions in the single engined, two seat ‘Stumps’ which still saw service with the Defector Brigades. They were solid, slow and stable, but the engines died too easily and there was no space to move in the cabin. Each of the wing’s bomb bays could hold the fuselage of a Stumpy and the crew of eight , it could comfortably hold twelve in gun platform mode, could move around the pressurised cabin.

Harren plugged his remote talker into a panel above the navigator’s position. “About time to come arfound Mister Karn.”

“Coming around to…. three five two?”

The navigator nodded. “Three five two.” Harren unplugged and walked forward as the wing began to bank.

“I can’t understand why we fly these missions. It would better suit the cause to go over the damn mountains and take the fight to what’s left of the Northen Countries. Or we could block the Arril pass for good.”

“Good time, Karn, good time. They believe there is a whole army scattered over the plains and in the forests. It is hoped we can find some of it and rain down fire upon them.”

The black tower of smoke which pinpointed the factory city of Reff came into view and the wing stabilised. Light glinted off the great river which lazily wound its way from Reff, having just as lazily sneaked out of the forested mountains of the unexplored far North.

“You have no need to lecture me. I am merely impatient and posing a rhetor…..” Karn craned forward as he trailled off, straing at something far above.

Harren strained for a moment before he spotted them. Twin trails of white vapour, running almost vertical, inclined ever so slightly toward the far side of the mountains. The trails started and ended far above the wing’s upper limits, though the bottoms were coming ever lower. Harren plugged his RT in. “Navigator come forward.”

The navigator spotted the vapour trails without requiring a prompt. He did some quick calculations on a wipe clean map. “They shall fall well short of Reff.”

“Really? What about now?” Karn asked, pointing. The trajectories were shallower.

“If they keep changing direction at that rate, maybe the great oil store, possibly Reff itself.”

“Comms. Flash traffic to Reff aerial defence. Tell them to expect a an attack. Gunnery, see if you can get me those things in the focals.”

The screen above and to the left of Harren made alow Punnnn sound as it turned on. In gun platform mode the optics and electronic imaging device under the nose turret fed images for the pilot and gunner to target the recoilless cannons slung below the bomb bays. The image resolved and zoomed in. At maximum magnification the picture was fuzzy, but Harren could swear he was looking at his own wing, only sleeker- as if it had folded up at great speed.

“The Northerners are experimenting with rockets to send their artillery further.” Karn repeated an officers’ club rumour. The trajectories were now almost flat, these were no dumb shells.

The objects, wing or bomb, were almost horizontal as they crossed Reff. Every aerial defence gun and rocket – and there were a great many- loosed several salvos. The air over the polluted city became darker still. The slave workers would have the threat of a shrapnel rain to add to the noxious fumes they breathed.

Both flying things entered the cloud, they could hardly avoid it. “No thing could survive that.” opined Karn. The viewer zoomed out, just in time to see two objects, each trailing flame and smoke, burst out of the cloud. One shot high and to the South, the other low toward the ocean. “Rockets.” Karn repeated as they disappeared from view faster than anything had the right to travel.