Read Online [The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) by Stephen Moss - Free Book Online

shouted, “Do you think you are going to be an officer, boy?”
    “Yes, Drill Sergeant.” was the shouted reply.
    “Well, we’ll see, won’t we,” said Shih quietly once more, then, back at his practiced and phenomenal top volume he screamed, “On the floor, give me fifty of your most patriotic, boy.”
    With the aplomb of the very strong and very supple, Leong-Lam dropped straight forwards, cushioning his fall with his hands, and proceeded to push through forty of his fifty push-ups with straight-backed ease. Drill Sergeant Shih looked on and started to get annoyed; this was not supposed to look this easy.
    Sensing anger at his ability, Leong-Lam changed tactics and began to strain at forty, flagging at forty-five, and finally collapsing at fifty, wheezing, and struggling to his feet with feigned difficulty.
    Though happy he had broken his new whipping boy, the sergeant also noted to himself that the candidate did not complain or seem even slightly dismayed at the clear injustice of his punishment. Good, he would certainly not go easy on him, but maybe this one had promise. Now the fat tub of lard next to him, on the other hand:
    “Do you think you can do better?” he screamed as he brought his guns to bear on this softer target.
    “Where did you get your clothes from, you disgusting lump?” he barked, “The zoo?”
    * * *
    Two days earlier, outside the town where he would eventually be picked up by the army bus and delivered into Drill Sergeant Shih’s loving arms, Leong-Lam had stood at the bottom of a wooden telephone pole. In orbit above him an eye was watching him and his surrounding area, checking for coming traffic.
    Lowering his now full bag from his back to the soft, wet soil along the side of the deserted road, he bent and looked at its featureless top. As he stared, a small opening formed on the bag’s surface, revealing a pouch just larger than the inch-long device it contained.
    Leong-Lam picked up the crocodile clip shaped device and clipped it to the collar of his white shirt. Sensing his readiness, the eye overhead confirmed that he was alone, and Leong-Lam turned and with the practiced ability of a chimp, or a beach boy climbing a coconut tree in some now defunct Caribbean ideal, he shimmied hand over hand up the telephone pole, eventually grasping one of the fat telephone lines with one iron-fisted hand. In this position he hung in apparent comfort as he unclipped the black object from his collar and attached it to the line.
    The feeling of the wire’s thick plastic coating was like a muffled opera to the tiny device, and it immediately reached out its microfiber probes to penetrate the wire’s coating, seeking the meat inside. As they found their purchase within, the connection was complete, and the coursing information within sung through the small device like a burst dam.
    The device did not understand its purpose, only its mission, and it hung on to the wire as tightly as Leong-Lam and wirelessly informed the black bag below of the successful connection. The black bag was a repository for a host of devices of varying sizes, but its cylindrical central core was of singular purpose. The subspace tweeter was the only communication device its makers still truly used, and though its inner workings were complex, its purpose was simple. Via the creation of a microscopic gap in what we perceive as space, it was possible to physically affect the very fabric of the cosmos.
    The effect possible was, in reality, no more than a tiny vibration, like a radio wave, and it was all but imperceptible. Though theorists and science fiction writers liked to posit that it would one day be possible to open holes like this large enough to allow people or spaceships to step instantly from one place to another, such a thing was, even to our guests, still a dream.
    But the vibrations they could send through the tiny gaps could be felt instantly, by anyone equipped to listen, anywhere in the universe. All that the