Blueberry Dreams

By Christopher Mowatt

Alone among the stars, a vetran of the colonial marines walks the razors edge between serving Fleet and being associated with members of his squad who mutiny. Suddenly he finds himself being hunted by the very people he is sworn to protect and defend. In his pursuit for answers he learns one horrifying truth about himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christopher Mowatt
• Release date: Aug 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386358671

Christopher Mowatt

A former Paralegal who worked at top ten law firms as well as top movie and television studios in Los Angeles, California, Christopher Mowatt has done it all....almost. A world traveler, vagabond, scoundrel, blogger and single dad, he now turns his attention to writing. Chris grew up in Santa Cruz, California, and lived for a short while in Mexico, Shanghai, Morocco, Japan and anywhere else without an extradition treaty but now lives in Redond Beach with his family.  

Book preview

I.

I WOKE UP IN A GREAT MOOD

––––––––

The dream is so vivid. I’m in a field. Rows and rows of highbushes. Blueberry highbushes. Some as tall as five feet. The smell......sweet, intoxicating. I take in a deep breath......hold it for just a moment. Then.....slowly exhale. Even when I was five on my parents’ farm in Kentucky, as this particular dream is of, I somehow knew to breathe in the ambiance like that. To let the aroma of the blueberries lift me up inside, like a wave at the ocean, and wash away all my cares and worries. All the care and worries a five-year-old could have, that is.

The highbushes in some places are so close to each other they can’t help but rub against me. Now I smell like blueberries.

The sun is just past midday. There is a warm breeze gently caressing me. It blows the smell of the blueberries all around me, engulfing me. Like the wave described before. Gradually the vision I beheld faded into a sight of blankness, light in color.

***

The imagery of the dream left me like a veil lifting on a play I had seen many times before. A play which left me in a very happy, peaceful and comfortable place. Only to be replaced now by the sound of the alarm. Which alarm was it? Focus.

Proximity alarm. Something was within the ships’ defensive perimeter. I brought up the sensor image. Three ships, alien configuration, were heading towards the ship. They seemed to be in a triangular formation and heading this way at a constant speed.

Check communications. Any sign of contact? The problem with being the only one on the ship was that I had to do everything that required a command decision. The Fleet brass had decided that a command decision was narrowed to that which required human intellect.

I was the only ‘human intellect’....... wow, when I say that it sounds so cold. When I say it out loud I feel alone on this ship, which is alone deep in space. Well not alone for now, and I am the only ‘human intellect’ on board. Time to focus.

This is the Earth ship Blue Horizon. I could have used the standard automated reach-out, but I always felt that was too impersonal. Or, as I say with a chuckle, lacks the human touch. No response to hails. I try again. This is the Earth ship, Blue Horizon. Your path puts you on a collision or intercept course with this vessel. Please state your intentions.

A moment passes. Then another. Nothing. I transmit what are called universal friendship messages. These consist of pictures of people from Earth in various non-threatening poses, a repeat of my entire message but in every known language on Earth and the few sorted colonies we have scattered throughout the neighboring systems. Plus, there is a mathematical algorithm which is supposed to allow intelligent life to figure out English and numbers and.... I really don’t know. It’s an algorithm.

Check the sensors again. Still the three vessels are heading straight for me. Check communications. Nothing not even a message in text as a response. Hmm. Weird but not unusual.

I once went exploring in this one system which I had no idea was populated with three, yes three different races from three different habitable planets within that system. All of which were fiercely xenophobic. It was weird to me because at one time all three planets were at peace with each other. They traded and exchanged just about everything with their interstellar cousins. Peaceful. Then as far as I can tell, and I got this from the wreckage of one of the ships that was sent to ‘persuade me’ to leave the system but ended up picking a fight, a ship from another system stopped for repairs at a station operated by all three civilizations within that system. It was crewed by one guy desperate for repairs but who had a bad attitude. This guy, a real head disturber, spread this bizarre xenophobic ideology. Saying this planet in the system is better than that planet and that planet is more important than the others in the system. The ship was repaired and the guy left without even so much as a ‘thank you’. But his ideology? It caught on like wild fire first on one planet then another then the third. Each one claiming ownership of the ‘We’re great, you’re not’ message. That’s the weird part. They couldn’t agree on anything anymore except this xenophobic attitude, which they all claimed ownership of, but was really from a guy who wasn’t even from one of the three planets. Over a century the philosophy had sprung to life, the origin of the hate message and the