My Short Story Collection

By Barry Lee Jones

(Total word count–38,741) In Communicating through time, while surveying a planet for possible colonization an astronaut encounters a creature that he thinks is hostile, but can’t be sure.
In Healthclub, the crew members of a spaceship relate their stories to a new crew member.
In Captives of Benevolence, the crew of the EBA, Lancelot find these little creatures and study them. The creatures turn out to be far smarter than the Lancelot crew gives them credit for.
In Courtroom, a local reverend and a local con man each live their lives and in the end die and go to judgement day. They are each judged with surprising results.
In Infestation, an eye salve causes a man to see auras and be able to tell who is good and who is evil. The Church of Satan wants his abilities and comes after him.
The Explorers, is about a company that maps the surface Mars.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781312873001

Book preview

My Short Story Collection

Short Story Collection

Written By Barry Lee Jones

Copyright 2014 by Barry Lee Jones

ISBN: 978-1-312-87300-1

T. his work is licensed under the Creative Commons attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivs 2.0 Generic License.  To view a copy of this license, visit

Http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

Communicating Through Time

1.  What the physicians and psychiatrists didn’t realize was that the death of their patient might mean the death of humanity as we know it.

You still don’t remember anything up to and including your last mission. Lieutenant Jedediah Daley said it as a fact, not a question. He paced the small room, from one end of the ten foot table to the other. His footsteps as well as his voice echoed off the sound proof walls.

For the thousandth time, no. I don’t remember anything. Captain Erec Crispin picked his head up out of his palms and looked up at the elderly lieutenant. His blue eyes were blood-shot with large circles under them.

Okay, I’ll run the mission by you one more time.  Then we’ll both get some rest.  Jedediah’s voice was becoming raspy from overuse. His usual kind bedside manner had dissolved long hours since.

"Your small ship circled the planet once and came in for a landing. It soared down into the atmosphere and came to rest gently on a patch of grassy terrain. Inside, you, Free Agent for EBA, Earth Based Affairs, made an entry in your log, telling that you had landed on the planet. You then went down your checklist to check for post-landing wear-and-tear. After seeing that everything had survived the landing, you made a last minute atmosphere test. Everything checked out in the right proportions, so you stepped out.

"What you saw was a lush, green planet. A veritable garden of Eden, if you would.  Around your ship, for approximately twenty yards in all directions, the ground was covered totally by thick, matted grass.  Beyond that, began larger tree and bush-like organic structures. The growth was so thick in that forest, that your vision could not penetrate beyond its beginning.

"You got to work setting up your field laboratory, but while you were in the process of getting your gear organized, you carelessly dropped your baton, a weapon that years of experience has taught you to always carry on your person while surveying unexplored planets.

You then set out into the field to get samples of bio-mass and do some plot sampling to determine the percentage of ground cover by biomass.  You had an antique Swiss Army pocket knife that you used to cut off plant samples.  I don’t know why you always insisted on doing things so primitively. You even hiked into the wooded area when you could have used a vehicle to fly over it.  My word! He wiped sweat off of his brow, just thinking about it. "Do you know how dangerous that is?

Or rather, I should say you crawled on your belly, The thought noticeably disgusted him, "for about the first quarter mile.  I don’t know how, but you always managed to keep track of the direction of your ship in the back of your mind. Remarkable!

"After about the first quarter mile, the foliage was less dense, so you got up, brushed yourself off, and began to run. You made mental notes of the ground coverage and stopped occasionally to make notations in your log and cut off samples of biomass here and there to make a study of later.

"You ran for about ten miles, crossing streams, climbing ridges, and scaling cliffs.  It is no wonder that you’ve always kept in such phenomenal condition.

"Even while you were running, though, you kept your eyes straight ahead.  They were focused throughout your field of vision, so that you could see something out of the corner of your eye, just as easily as you could see something straight ahead.

"If you ever found anything that would be dangerous to future settlers and colonists, we could be certain that you would make a note of it in your log. Then you would pack up, leave that planet, and go on to your next assignment, since this particular mission, like many other missions, was to survey the planet for suitability for colonization.

"If you found that this particular place was too dangerous, or otherwise unsuitable for colonization, you didn’t mope over time wasted there, because you realized that that, in itself, would be a waste of time.

"On your way back to the ship, you met a creature. It stood sixteen feet tall on four feet. When it was on all six feet, it stood ten feet tall. It was hairy all over. Though its legs could bend, they seemed to be not really jointed. What could be described as its head, had pincers toward the top.  Below these were what looked like antennae with knobs on one end.  You deduced through sound logic that the antennae were eyes.

"You were startled for a second upon first seeing this creature.  Recovering from your start, you went for your baton. That was when you realized you had left it at the ship, along with your assortment of hand-to-hand weapons, a very foolish thing to do.

"That thing came at you.  There was no time to think. You tried to jump clear, but you were grazed by one of the thing’s front limbs. That sent you flying for a few feet. Luckily, with all of the undergrowth around, you had a relatively soft landing. Despite that, the damage was already done. When the thing got you, it got you bad, on the temple.  Rubbing your head, you stood up groggily.

"For probably the first time in your career, you were afraid. Despite your alertness, your ability to subconsciously identify everything you saw, heard, smelled, and felt, this thing got between you and your ship! And you were caught empty handed!

"Then the thing came again.  This time, it left only one remote path for retreat. You looked above you and saw a branch about thirteen feet up. You looked back at the creature. That branch was pretty high.  You didn’t know if you could make such a jump, even with the slightly lesser gravity. But it wasn’t as though you had a choice, now, was it? So you jumped.

"This time, you were lucky.  You caught that branch and scrambled up, beyond the twenty foot reach of that thing. You sat high up, watching that nasty creature pace the base of that tree.  From your new height, it looked like some kind of a deformed ant.

"It presently grew wary of its vigil and left. When it was well out of sight, you climbed back down.

"You were overcome by a wave of dizziness and disorientation.  Your temples were throbbing up a hot streak!  By the time your head cleared, you could not remember where your ship was.  Luckily, your trainers drilled into you emergency procedures.  You  would find high ground, make that your base, and then explore outwards in all directions.  But because of the buzzing in your head and your growing difficulty in concentrating, you really didn’t want to go to all that trouble. But again, you didn’t have any choice.

"Fourteen hours later, you made it to your ship, where you found that creature waiting for you. And your lab shelter? A shambles!

"Again, it chased you up a tree.  You could hardly believe how fast it was.  If you had been standing any farther than three feet away from the tree, it would have gotten you, even though it was a good one hundred yards away!

"You knew what you had to do.  You had to fight that . . . thing, to regain your ship.  You noticed that the tree bark was not unlike leather.  You used your knife to slice out long ribbons of the stuff.  You braided these together into a whip. With some stiffer bark, you fashioned yourself a shield. You could have made deadlier weapons, I am sure, but you elected not to because it was your duty as a Free Agent to uphold the standards of EBA.  Standards that prevented you from doing permanent harm to this creature, on pain of death. Normally, you didn’t mind, but this time you were very tired, your headache was coming back, worse than ever.  Still, you were ready to die to preserve the standards of EBA.

"With your whip and shield, you headed back for your ship. As you cracked your whip to force the beast back, it screamed grotesquely.  When it took a swipe at you with its forward limbs, you used your shield to block.  Forward you went.  Your baton lay on the ground, just beyond. Forward. It was now between you and the creature. Forward. You were standing over it. You hoped the creature would stay still while you picked it up. It didn’t. With a mighty sweep, it sent you back ten feet. Your shield was now in splinters. You were lucky. That could have been you.

"But with renewed strength, you got back up and charged the creature.  This time, you obtained your baton with your left hand, while your right hand wielded the whip. Using the fingers of your left hand, you adjusted your baton and fired. The thing went down almost immediately. Nothing like a particle beam assembling drugs inside the muscle tissue of some creature to put it to sleep.

"You got into your ship and attempted to start it.  It hummed to life, but to your dismay, that humming soon died away. Desperately, you tried to start it again.  Nothing.  You happened to glance out one of the widows.  You saw that thing starting to revive already!  You began insanely going down your checklist.  That damn thing was already standing up, shrugging off the effects of the drug! You were desperately flipping switches to get numerous gauge readings when the thing started walking toward your ship!

"You were glancing down the rows of gauges when you found that the needle to the conversion crystals wasn’t moving. Upon closer investigation, you found that one of the conversion crystals was cracked.  You didn’t know how or why. At the moment, you didn’t care. All you knew was that ships didn’t carry extra conversion crystals. Even if they did, you couldn’t put one in.  It takes years to learn how to do that.  Anyway, without the precious stones, take off should not be attempted.  At best, it would be tricky.  At worst, it would leave a mushroom cloud and enough radiation to sterilize everything for one thousand cubic miles. But because your headaches were constant now, you couldn’t think straight.

"You overrode the safety and hooked up direct drive, an easy enough task. But one task you would not have attempted if you had been thinking straight! A wave of dizziness damn near consumed you as you activated the fore burners. The ship rocked violently. You had only seconds to activate the main burners. When the main burners were activated, the ship shot into the sky. You almost blacked out from the sudden gee’s, but somehow you managed to stay conscious.

"You cruised your ship into an orbiting position and made visual contact with your mother ship.  Because of your headaches, you were only barely able to make calculations that would have been second nature, were it not for your head injury.  Following those calculations, you jettisoned most of your fuel out of your aft burners. The