A Blazing Gun

By Jason Longdon

On one of the new colonies on the other side of the galaxy, Samuel and Ellena are out of funds. Their only available source of income is for Samuel to return to the profession of a bounty hunter. Arming up and leaving on his flying vehl, he travels to the big city of Aramor. There, Samuel pursues the path of the unnamed gunman he once knew all too well.
Along the way Samuel finds that a businessman by the name of Prichard has turned against the people by taking control of the wormhole portals and killing all who can’t or wont pay his tolls. Isolated from the rest of the galaxy and with no way to call for assistance the colonists must fend for themselves in the face of oppression.
Is there hope resisting? Will Samuel turn the tide against Prichard and his workhands?
Can he take back the portals and return home to his wife?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jason Longdon
• Release date: Dec 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301785537

Jason Longdon

Growing up in California seemed only to provide me with access to plenty of dead end jobs. All the while I would come up with one neat imagining after another to keep myself from dieing of boredom while staring at a cash register or a car engine. Eventually the idea of being a writer struck. I've wanted to be a writer for awhile. Teaching myself how to write over fifteen years wasn't easy. In fact I'm still learning how to write as I go and will for life. Now is the time to write and publish my work.

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A Blazing Gun

By Jason Longdon

Copyright Jason Longdon 2012

Published at Smashwords

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A Blazing Gun

By Jason Longdon

1

Samuel wakes up underwater. He fights his way to the surface taking an overdue breath of air once there. The floodwaters tear through the dry riverbed on his side of the wormhole portal scouring the dirt and dust into it’s push forward. Passing instead of entering the portal the water would no doubt produce a small temporary river to feed the otherwise plush environment of the colony planet of Yew.

The homesteader considers that spending the night under the stars instead of returning home may have been a mistake. Samuel holds his hat on his head while searching for his vehl. He sees the saddled animal hovering overhead, his skin thick and tan to the point that anyone would assume it to be leather for hard working use, hiss great tan leathery wings flapping downward with unparalleled force to support his presence. The vehl could not help his master from the flood earlier and instead waited nearby while protecting the packed load of crops. Samuel, dressed in a sandy brown and dark blue homesteader’s outfit, quickly jumps between the shallower streams of water over to his mount. The vehl, named Raine, descends. His master grabs onto the right side of the saddle, pulls himself up, saddles up being careful to avoid damaging the cargo or hurting his vehl, and pulls the stiff reins upwards. Man and vehl ascend to a point safely above the flood.

Samuel decides to travel through the wormhole portal while in flight. The two dive down, fly through, and emerge on the other side instantly. Samuel pushes down on the leather wrapped wood reins, it’s hardened leather wraps allowing for convenient control of the types of flight that the preferably hovering vehls are easily capable of providing.

Having left behind the colony of Yew, Samuel lands his vehl safely on the dry riverbed of the new planet Ha’voe then dismounts to take stock. The wormhole portals were know not to allow for too much nature to pass through except when needed to balance one planet’s mass with the other. The floodwaters did not pass through to the other side.

Well, says Samuel to his vehl while searching through his packs, it looks like everything’s here Raine. Thanks for waking me up back there.

Wringing out his shirt leaves water on the ground to tell the tale. Though the energies of the portal shimmer within throwing distance in the bright hot sun, Samuel knows the portal will not dry out his clothes. He switches the shirt with another one he keeps in a saddle pack on one side of his vehl.

The new planet of Ha’voe awaits the visitor with the town of Aquim and it’s similarly named valley only a few hundred feet away. There the environment of great plains begins about the city and leads out for hundreds of miles before stopping at differing ecosystems across that continent of the planet. A wonderful vista of small plants and grass surrounding the town distracted from the fact that danger could come through any portal at any time. Armies had poured through them during the last war taking foreign planets by storm in days. Stopping the old war had been a difficult accomplishment. Many cities enjoyed the benefits from the technology and expenses. Unlike these towns the people of Yew and Ha’voe worked the land of their new home worlds for natural goods, trade and to search for a future for themselves and their place in the galaxy. Good trade between the planets and lack of involvement other than to defend themselves preserves the two colonies better than most to this day.

Samuel is prepared for any trouble from the local guards at the other side of the portal who have been oppressing free competition in favor of their own business profits for years. His weapons ready, Samuel finds he is not alone. A stranger stumbles out of the town through the large arch of the main entrance, rifle in hand, aiming it all over the place and then firing at Samuel. The shot goes wide, misses the homesteader by far. Before the stranger could hit him with a shot from his rifle, Samuel draws his own pistol and pulls the trigger. The pistol charges an area of space and time until it is different enough in shape and energy, then accelerates the round through the barrel beyond the speed of light. The round continues until it decelerates from beyond the speed of light by striking the first dense enough mass it encounters, the chest of the stranger. The stranger’s chest is hit, an explosion of energy creates a small crater of damage, the remains of the round pass through his chest to his death. Samuel pulls himself up off the ground. He brushes dust off himself as the local sheriff, jumping out from behind a ruined old trading cart, runs up and checks the stranger for a pulse.

He’s dead. says the sheriff, Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of the body. You just head into town.

Samuel nods to the sheriff, walks past the witnesses at the town entrance heading for the market. That an honest seeming man like him could and would shoot one of the portal aggressors was no longer a thought to most people. The businessmen were becoming difficult lately. Restless, perhaps, for every last penny of profit. By the time Samuel passes through the entrance of the large wall that surrounds the town from the early days of the old war the matter is forgotten.

The quiet little town of Aquim rests in the center of the width of the green Aquim valley and at the start of it’s breadth due to the position of the naturally occurring portal. Townsfolk walk and ride between carts and building in search of the basic trade that helps keep each of them fed, clothed, and able to sustain life in the isolated area. Rarely does a traveler pass through, but when one does pass through the few bits of currency spent on the way help to keep law and order sustained for the year. A common sight on the planets of the colonies are flying beasts called vehls which pull carts as needed and carry almost everyone and everything to and from. The vehls are often named by their owners who saddle and ride them to empower their freedom of travel and use of the nature of the land. Each one of the animals is known to have a unique pattern in their tan, brown or black leathery skin beautiful enough so as to move the people to write poetry about the patterns alone. Some patterns are only found on pack handling vehls and other patterns are only found on faster and higher flying vehls. When not used to fly about, the vehl’s great leathery wings fold and tuck into a smooth flat form along the surface of their shoulders, filling a modest deficit of muscle in the precise area.

Wooden buildings on the periphery of the village appear older in style to Samuel. He pulls his tan vehl past the old survival homesteads and businesses that were built after the war. Samuel’s mount growls. The vehl prefers staying close to the silicon buildings as opposed to old wooden ones due to the lack of wood in the upper mountains throughout the colony. There the different types of silicon unique to the planet, base, reactant, aggregate and the like can be found easily. Most colonists prefer using combinations of silicon to replace metals and other building materials that are lacking in the environment. The strange gravity of the many moons in orbit of the next planetary colony, Aramor, pulls the higher altitude and plentiful silicon deposits found there into different forms, different molecular structures, and a future for development.

Samuel scratches at his black hair in thought, searches for a vendor in the town market who would take his crop of small dark yellow melons called Calimin. This time of year was normally good for trade. However, money is scarce lately for whatever reason. Raine tugs at the straps secured around his neck and mouth as Samuel reaches a wooden cart vendor.

The vendor reaches for the scant remains of his depleted stock of fruit, offers a piece of sweet green citrus fruit to the sole customer within reach. Turning her head and walking away the vendor, Pel, loses the sale. He places the piece of fruit back into his cart’s wooden dividing sections and steps back under the shade of the swampy-black leather tarp above him. The same black leather overhangs from the face of buildings throughout town, especially where vendors set up shop.

Pel welcomes, Good morning Samuel. How is the wife?

Samuel holds his vehl’s harness, turns his mount to one side before the vendor while responding, We’re doing alright. A little short on money.

Pel avoids eye contact, Ah. Well I don’t think I can help you with that. I can trade some tools and and some wild boldberries for your stock.

The two men haggle over the terms of the deal while business varies for other vendors nearby. Laughter and cries of false shock over claims flow through the market on a light wind. The sun rises higher up in the sky closer to the darkening point above where the various moons block out light for twenty minutes to an hour and at least four times a day. Samuel and Pel finalize their negotiations ahead of the next poorly tracked eclipse.

So, concludes Pel, i still owe you an old though intact leather tarp within five days at three times the size of an unmade wood-chip pack workable into that form.

Samuel collects a woodworking tool and a bag of vehl feed from aside Pel’s cart, That’s right.

Pel claps his hands, Done then!

One of the moons in the sky above moves across the sun dimming the area as Samuel secures his new goods in the empty packs on one side of his vehl. He leaves the Calimin melons in Pel’s possession. Vendors reach for black leather tarps hidden in the sides of their carts or above their heads, pull the tarps over their goods and shield the tarps with their bodies to protect them from thieves. Pel follows suit in covering his goods with the added protection of closing the wooden dividing sections of his cart with a wooden barrier and lock. Mounting his vehl and pulling back on his reigns sends Samuel flying upwards through the air to a stable holding position at a comfortable distance from several other shoppers and travelers. There they wait for about thirty seven minutes. The eclipse ends with another one on the way by the end of the hour. Samuel flies over the town following the ground trails that had been left in the dirt by the forefathers of the town with sown salt.

The portal awaits, shimmering with new light after the eclipse. Samuel flies through on his vehl. The two of them are enveloped by the fields of energy that protect the environment from pressure differences and gravities of each planet from one another. Emerging in the new environment prepared to weather the change in location, Samuel flies from the portal to the route leading to his home on the far