A Sense of Wonder: Ten Science Fiction Stories

By C. C. Blake

Ten stories that range from the day after tomorrow to distant future empires spanning the galaxy. Tough everymen and women plucked from the everyday and given a shot at something far better than they have ever known. A racer on the revenge road. A for-hire captain given a chance at heroism. A detective solving a mystery that might reignite flames from the second American Civil War. A woman seeking justice for the murder and desecration of her father.

This omnibus collection includes the complete contents of Spicy Space Operas and Terrifying Tomorrows.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Twice Told Tales II
• Release date: Jun 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310701009

C. C. Blake

C.C. Blake has lived across the United States, starting in the suburbs of Detroit, to Massachusetts’ second largest city (Worcester) to the country’s seventh largest city (San Antonio, Texas, that is). He’s has a variety of jobs, working as a substitute teacher, the graveyard shift dishwasher at a haunted Denny’s, lab research monkey and teaching assistant at a second tier college. Currently, he works as an automation consultant for a chemical company on the Northeast side of SAtown (which isn’t as Hellish as it sounds). Blake’s most popular character, irrepressible adventurer Chuck Cave, has appeared in over two dozen stories, including the 2005 Man’s Story 2 Story of the Year Award winner “Chuck Cave and the Vanishing Vixen.” The character’s supernatural thriller stories (which began with the seminal “Cave and the Vamp”) are all being released as a part of Vampires2.com’s initial foray into e-books. These new versions are presented in expanded and revised versions, all are the author’s preferred texts. Be sure to collect them all! In addition to his pulp stories for the 2-Empire (Man’s Story 2, Vampires 2, Androids 2 and Paranormal Romance 2), Blake’s fiction has appeared in several anthologies, including Unparalleled Journeys II (from Journey Books Publishing) and Fearology: Terrifying Tales of Phobias (from Library of Horror Press).

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A Sense of Wonder

Ten Science Fiction Stories

By: C. C. Blake

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Fiction © 2012 and 2014 by C. C. Blake

Cover Design © 2014 by Twice Told Tales, with cover art by  Alexaldo | Dreamstime.com

The following stories first appeared in slightly different versions in the following markets:

The Positronic Pretty first appeared in slightly different form as Rick Cave and the Positronic Pretty in Androids 2 magazine.

Burn Job and the Artificial Honey appeared in slightly different form on the Androids 2 website.

The Beauty Snatchers first appeared in slightly different form as Rick Cave and the Beauty Snatchers in Androids 2 magazine.

Burn Job and the Space Pimp's Wrath appeared in slightly different form on the Androids 2 website.

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Table of Contents

The Positronic Pretty

Burn Job and the Artificial Honey

Trapped In the Star Sultan's Labyrinth of Doom

To Honor Her Father

Laurie Parker and the Intergalactic Girl Show

The Beauty Snatchers

Burn Job and the Space Pimp's Wrath

Starving for Answers

Fly By Night

Finger to Allah

Further Reading

About the Author

The Positronic Pretty

The spaceport authority gave me a wicked smile, showing off the stumps of his yellow teeth. Through a thick, New-Slav accent, he said, Captain Rick, sir, records indicate you need to pay for customs tax and stickers.

Revealing that I already paid last week would accomplish nothing. When in Pioterburg, do as the New-Slavs. I handed over half the spoils of my latest job, three hundred smackers.

He checked me off as an upstanding citizen, meaning it would be another two weeks before they hit me up, again.

I needed the cash to leave planet for good. Hell, I needed quite a few things but didn’t expect much. Pioter’s World promises a lot, but seldom comes through.

I dropped a third of my remaining petty cash at a couple of the local watering holes. They were dirty places where tourists showed up with their vacation dollars, expecting a brush with danger, but not so awful that a man would have his gizzards cut over a couple of smackers. Now that I had a space tug and a business, I avoided those kinds of places.

Fuel expenses had gotten pretty bad since the ORPHEN world embargos. Still, I was a free trader in a galaxy of wage-slaves, and that was enough for me. Except, I wasn’t free, was I? Nope, I needed the same smackers everyone did.

I was all too happy, when I finally got a nibble.

McCormick was an expat from the StarBar Hub, looking to book two seats off Pioter’s World to some little hick planet on the rim, no questions asked. He was maybe fifty standard years old. He kept his gray hair and moustache trimmed. His clothes were the sort a rich man might don to go slumming.

The other passenger was lovely. Her dark hair was so long a man could get lost in it. Her beautiful body featured curves in all the right places. She was maybe in her twenties. Her eyes were a lovely shade of blue, which looked violet under some lights.

McCormick said, Can you help me, Mister Cave?

It’ll cost you.

He gave me a tight-lipped grin. Can we leave tonight?

Why the rush? I asked but then held up my hands. No questions, that’s right.

His grin grew a little more relaxed.

I named a figure large enough to set myself up as a Pioterburg slum baron, and he said, Done, Mr. Cave, without batting an eye.

Call me Captain, I said, I’ll need half up front to fill the tanks. He nodded anxiously and started to reach for his pocket. I grabbed his arm. Now, now, buddy, I said, keeping my voice soft and conversational, No need to flash your smackers, here. This is a clean enough joint, but the folks on this rock are all a little desperate.

We were in Svetlana’s Place, a gin joint and whore’s palace. Sveti kept the girls upstairs, and circulated portfolios of her dolls to each of the tables. The eager buyers paid and then went on hour long dates. Most of the patrons kept their eyes trained on the flesh menus. A few stayed aware of their surroundings. Grifters.

Let’s step outside, I said to McCormick.

We made it halfway to the doors, when a pair of hired muscle shoved their way in from the street.

The girl said, Trouble has found us, Doctor. Her voice was sweet as good music.

One of the guys pulled a pistol. I dove onto the girl, pulling her out of the line of fire.

A gunshot cracked. McCormick dropped to the floor, gasping and holding his chest. The wound was a bad one, but he could still move.

Fetch! the gunman ordered. His buddy came for us like a trained hound.

Get her . . . Away . . . McCormick wheezed.

The girl’s skin was warm under me and scented with a subtle richness that gave her the aroma of an exotic fruit. She looked into my face. I realized, in that moment, I did not want to let these jerks manhandle her. She was too delicate.

The hound was nearly on us.

I glanced around. Spotted a pitcher of Everclear on one nearby table, and a lit sparkler martini on another.

I jumped up, grabbed the pitcher and then threw the contents on the guy-dog. He screamed and clawed at his eyes. I shoved him face-first into the sparkler martini. The liquor ignited with a whoosh.

The gunman fired. My left shoulder caught the slug. Then the Hound started running around like a shrieking moron. The gunman didn't take another shot.

The distraction got us out the back door, into the labyrinthine alleys and streets of Pioterburg.

Two blocks away, we stopped because of our wounds. Inspecting McCormick, the girl said, Serious, and started performing emergency medicine operations. In moments, the bleeding stopped, and he was on recovery's rough road.

Through the process, he showed no pain, merely stared into her face as though she was a saint from the New-Slav Orthodox made flesh.

Then, she treated my wound. While her graceful fingers worked, her heart shaped face displayed a nearly transcendent calm, and her scent was overpowering. It cut through the blood and the pain. I liked what I smelled. Then, she flashed me a quick smile. Like we were sharing a secret. I stopped feeling pain when I saw it, and though I'd been shot, I couldn't help but smile back. She was something special all right.

You really know what you’re doing, I said, I'm not supposed to ask questions, but . . . What do I call you, doll?

Miho, she said.

Miho, I repeated, but the word tasted different on my tongue than it did in my ear. You do great patch up work.

She was a nurse, McCormick said.

I imagined her in the white cap and uniform. Nice. Where? I asked.

Vaetmiau, she said.

My stomach plunged. "That hellhole?"

I was a combat nurse. Doing my part to keep the StarBar Grunts going. All this she said with a faint smile and the calmness of sharing an innocent anecdote, not recollections of one of the bloodiest, dirtiest wars in recent history.

That smile would have helped a lot of men on their way to the big quiet.

When he sees an angel guiding him to rest, a man tends to lie quietly and accept his fate, believing that everything is well despite the truth.

All done, she said.

I said, Let’s get you stowed on the ship. Once the fuel tank's full, we’ll hit the dustless trail.

The HotNumber was a sweet tug. Maybe not as sleek as a corvette, but she was a mid-tonnage gal with plenty of spunk, and quite a few smuggler’s niches.

McCormick and Miho hid in one of these, while I paid for fuel and filed the proper paperwork to leave port.

To the right eye, a big beautiful woman is better than any skinny little speedster. First time I saw her, I fell in love with my HotNumber. She's got an appetite, though. Refueling her tanks takes about three hours on a good day. Pioterburg’s dock pumps weren’t made for large tankers.

Two hours into the wait, I pretty much convinced myself the jerks from Svetlana’s wouldn’t follow us back to the ship, but then the gunman and another tough sauntered into the hangar and proved me wrong.

You’re the guy set Kolvich on fire, the gunman said.

You should’ve kept him on a leash, I said.

Funny, he said and elbowed his pal. Isn't that funny?

His new partner said, Where’s the oldster and the girl? This guy seethed with brooding menace.

Bleeding in an alley somewhere, I said, I figured there was no sense hooking myself up with a couple of trouble magnets like them.

Hear that, Marvin? the gunman said. Marvin's face told me what he thought of elbows and where the gunman could stick his. This guy ditched 'em.

Marvin appraised me and smiled. It was not a pleasant grin, but a silent promise of grievous harm. You wouldn’t lie to us, would you?

I don’t even know who you—

Who we are doesn’t matter, the gunman said, But our boss does. Trotskotch?

That name meant big money and bigger trouble. It rings a bell, I said. Look, I left them, okay?

A third thug came into the hangar, taller and broader than the others. He was studying a gizmo in his hand, which looked like a calculator with an antenna. After a moment of intense concentration, he looked up and pointed a finger and the HotNumber. The targets are on that ship, he said. From his look, he was a hardcore piston, but the voice was an ungreased hinge.

I glanced over to a nearby wrench. It lay in reaching distance. I could maybe grab it and clean their—

Marvin moved cat-quick. In a moment, a heavy-duty pistol filled his hands, and he clubbed me upside the head.

He was good at his job, and I was out fast, the gunman's laughter chasing me into oblivion. I'll be damned if he didn't sound like a hyena . . .

I didn't see what happened next, but it was easy enough to figure out.

They ripped my ship apart.

When I came to, they were long gone, taking lovely, little Miho with them.

They left McCormick for dead, but he managed to crawl to the HotNumber's medical bay, which got him stabilized by the time I recovered consciousness.

I asked him, Why's this SOB after your ward?

Trotskotch's been hunting her since Vaetmiau, McCormick said. "At the end of the war, the Vee Mung Militia stormed the cities. StarBar Personnel were being evacuated as quickly as possible. It was chaos. Trotskotch was already on-world, heading up a smuggling ring, which raided the military PX and sold the goods off planet. He was still on base in a stolen uniform when the VeMM stormed the doors, and he got caught in an explosion.

Miho found him. She didn't know he wasn't part of the StarBar Infantry, so she started stitching him up.

"Miho was