| Author |
Message |
    
G. Bone (gbone)
Registered Member
Username: gbone
Post Number: 98
Registered: 10-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2003 - 10:50 pm: | 
|
check the ASB forum, under mosaic earth (it's the last forum on the discussion page) |
josquius (josquius)
Registered Member
Username: josquius
Post Number: 611
Registered: 06-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 02:04 pm: |
|
I haven't looked in at mosaic earth for some time (can't stand the archive type threads) Where can I find this one in the mosaic earths topic or is it made up just for this story? |
Tom Mazanec (tom)
Registered Member
Username: tom
Post Number: 273
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 10:35 am: |
|
Antonio:
I look forward to seeing your new stories! |
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 192
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, August 27, 2003 - 09:22 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth: A Lost Piece (8th and final part)
The passengers of the plane ended their odyssey in a military base near Madrid. The british envoys offered them the possibility to go back to England, and to those that were from another country being repatriated to the nearest equivalent. Ana chose to serve, at least temporarily, as part of the team of the new british ambassador, her friend Mary chose to go back to England. After declaring his intentions to go back to Great Britain, Christopher Holcomb was called by the Colonel David Cuevas.
- Mr. Holcomb, would you be so kind to come with me? We have to discuss something. -
They walked until they found themselves to some distance of the crowd that was embarking in the plane.
- What do you want? -
- I think that this device is yours. - said Cuevas, taking the microphone that Holcomb had put in his uniform the day before. - I wouldn't have noticed anything, but I had been involved in Intelligence operations and I know some of the tricks. -
- But...-
- Martos isn't the only one in the highest echelons of our armed forces that still remembers fondly the time where the military was the supreme power in Iberia. -
Holcomb needed a few seconds to make the connection.
- Are you suggesting the possibility of a coup?
- I don't think that this would be a surprise for you, given the story of the Spain of your world. -
General Martos sat on his office, and took the telephone. He marked a number and said:
- Plus Ultra - and returned the phone to its cradle.
He summoned his most trusted subordinates and began to issue orders that he and others had been preparing for months.
This is the end of "Mosaic Earth: A lost piece". I'm going to continue the action in "Mosaic Earth: The Iberian Crisis" and I'm going to give some stand-alone stories in "Mosaic Earth: Loose Pieces".
|
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 185
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Friday, August 08, 2003 - 09:37 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth: A Lost Piece (7th part)
The bus had stopped and suddenly Cuevas appeared beside the driver. Then he said that there had been a change of plans and that they have to board another bus. Ana observed that the man that was beside her was not showing any sign of surprise. When she got out from the bus, she saw that they were in a secondary road, having abandoned the highway some time ago, before a police control, and that in a path that parted from the road, two civilian-looking buses were expecting them.
- I'm Lord Sitwell, a personal envoy of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, sir. I suppose that your scientists have arrived to the same conclusion than ours. -
- If that is that somehow we have transported to an alternate world, that's correct. - answered Prime Minister Rafael Rato.
- That not exactly true, we have had preliminary contacts with the French, the Belgians and the Dutch, and we have compared notes. They aren't from our world and neither from yours. In fact each one of them seem to be from a different world. -
- Excuse me for being so undiplomatic, but why we should trust you? -
- I have bring with me the Spanish ambassador to the United Kingdom, and my counterpart sent to Lisbon is coming here, with the Portuguese ambassador, as you probably know already. -
Cuevas was quite satisfied with the smoothness with which was proceeding the change of vehicle. Then he heard a faint sound, and turned the head toward the sound. The road was quite straight, being in a long stretch of plains, and some kilometers away he saw several vehicles that were coming that direction, including a few APCs.
- Oh, shit! - he said, then he turned toward his friend from the Intelligence Service - I think that Martos is coming. -
He began to hurry the people boarding the buses. They have finally put the people on their way when Martos' car arrived to the control.
- I'll treat with him, David. He can pull rank with you, but not with me. -
And he began to walk to the fuming general that was getting out his car.
- Good evening, general Martos. What bring you here? -
- Soares, damned Portuguese! I should have known that you were behind this. -
- General, I'm not behind nothing. There has been a change of plans... -
- And why I haven't been notified, then? I'll say you why, you goddamned wraiths don't know anything about the defense. Those damned anarcs have agents everywhere, and this is one of their ploys.... -
- The Libertarian Federation fell twenty years ago, general. The Cold War is over. -
- That is what they wanted us to believe! All what have happened in the Balkans in the last thirty years was a masquerade!.
-General, even you don't believe that. You are a relic of a past time, which still repeat the propaganda of the years of Salazar regime to advance your own political aspirations. Goodbye. - then he turned to the buses.
Martes made the gesture to get his pistol from the holster, but his aide catch his hand. Martos breathed hard and crossed his arms.
- This is not going to end here, Soares, I'll promise you that. - he said, going back to his car.
(Message edited by antonio on August 08, 2003) |
Tom Mazanec (tom)
Registered Member
Username: tom
Post Number: 193
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 31, 2003 - 10:22 am: |
|
Antonio and Legolas:
Keep going, please.
Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please! |
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 173
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Thursday, July 24, 2003 - 10:12 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth: A Lost Piece (6th part)
- And why are you telling us that? - asked Cuevas
- That's part of the reason because you have been ordered to move them here. The other part is general Martos. He is the chief of the project. -
- That paranoid son of a bitch! I know him in Project Phoenix. - said Pinheiro
- Project Phoenix? THAT Project Phoenix? - asked Cuevas.
- Yes, David. That Project Phoenix. Twenty years wasted in something that even the Ottomans managed to build in a few years. - said Pinheiro. - Martos was always putting a good number of scientists under the microscope to see if they were blackies (1) or at least libbies (1). That was the reason because I left the project, incidentally. Martos harassed me for my ex-wife, who had been a member of the Students Front in the University. -
- Then, do you understand what is waiting for our "guests" when we arrive to our destination? -
- Barb wire, armed guards, harsh treatment, something like that, isn't it? What are you plotting? - answered Pinheiro remembering something that happened about forty years ago.
- When we get out of the highway we are going to find a police control. Then we are going to change them to a civilian bus, and we are going to carry them to other destiny. The guys of Defense aren't going to like this, but there are other factors that they, and you also, don't need to know. And we haven't time to work through the proper channels. -
"This sounds suspiciously similar to 'the right hand that didn't know what the left hand is doing'" thought Christopher Holcomb, while a plane was heard passing over them.
That plane, wearing RAF marking, landed a few minutes later in a military base not far from Madrid. Other two similar planes had already landed in Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Brussels, and other was headed toward Rome. Soon after the first plane, another plane, this time wearing the Gibraltar ensign arrived to the same base.
- So you need that we control the soldiers and scientists in the other cars while your guys are moving them to the bus, right? .
- Right. I hope that I'm not asking too much to you. -
- Please, Juan, spare me the number of 'I'm sorry', we know that if we weren't going to get along you would shoot us with the dart pistol in your jacket. -
- I thought that the pistol was perfectly concealed. -
- I have spent more time that I would have liked with your kind, wraith. Ok, maybe I have been a bit harsh, but last time that I cooperated with the guys of intelligence I ended shot down in the Balkans. -
(1) They are analogue terms to "red" and "pinkos", for the ideological bogeyman of the day. |
Diamond (diamond)
Registered Member
Username: diamond
Post Number: 801
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Saturday, July 19, 2003 - 07:47 am: |
|
I want longer parts!!!! LOL, just kidding. Enjoying the story very much. |
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 170
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Friday, July 18, 2003 - 10:25 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth: A Lost Piece (5th part)
Ana could only furtively peeks through the heavy curtains that covered the windows of the bus that were carrying them through the outskirts of Madrid. The few things that she could see was convincing her than the explanation that her friend Mary was right, that they had been somehow transported into an alternate world. Unfortunately he couldn't talk with her friend, that had been ushered into the last seats of the bus. Besides her was seated a man hearing music through earphones, even shaking his head following the rhythm. She envied his carefree behavior.
Christopher Holcomb wasn't hearing music. Instead he was listening the conversation that colonel David Cuevas was having with two persons in a nearby car, that the iberian officer was driving.
- Dr. Pinheiro, that's the most contrived and implausible explanation that I have heard. - was saying Cuevas.
- With the facts that he had provided us, it's the only possible explanation. - said the man that the british intelligence official assumed to be Dr. Pinheiro.
- Doc, I'm not worried about its absurdity, but if it's absurd enough to be true.-
- A friend of mine in the OSS used to say that same thing. - said the third man, whose name hadn't been mentioned yet, but Holcomb assumed that it was somebody from the iberian intelligence service. - He died from leukemia a few years ago. A pity, he was one of the most intelligent men that I have known. - A pause - Daniel, Martin, what I'm going to say you, must remain a secret. In fact, I haven't the security clearance to know this. - he smiled crookedly - Well, the situation is that our long-range reconnaissance planes had seen that in several naval facilities, that weren't previously there, by the way, in Southern France a lot of ships are being ready to leave harbor, including two nuclear-powered carriers, by what our experts can say. Our own armed forces are preparing themselves, but if the operations are directed against us, we aren't going to be able to stop them. -
|
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 164
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 09:50 am: |
|
It's curious how the things develop. This morning I said that maybe I could have it the next week, and I managed to write all of this in a while.
Mosaic Earth: A Lost Piece (4th part)
Christopher Holcomb jumped off from the bed when he heard the instructions that the spanish general was giving to Colonel Cuevas. For what he was hearing they haven't the slight idea of what had happened. He had arrived to the right conclusion when he saw the ensign of the fighters. Spain (and possibly Portugal also, if he interpreted the flag correctly) had been substituted by something called the United Kingdoms of Iberia, a federal kingdom of some type. The situation seemed something for a novel, as... Curious, he wasn't able to remember the title of the novel. It was something about an island being thrown in the past? . The details were foggy, something strange for him, usually able to remember even where the commas were placed in a book. But that was not important now. The last set of instructions that the general had received from Madrid and transmitted to Colonel Cuevas... They were going to be relocated to Madrid.
David Cuevas left the office of the general, with a grim expression on his face. The orders from Madrid didn't make sense, but he had been ordered to accompany them there.
They had been gathered before the barracks. Colonel Cuevas had asked all the people to come out of the barracks to address them.
- Ahem. The government had decided to relocate all of you to Madrid, so in order to go there with more discretion they have decided to use the same plane where you have come. Some of my troops, and myself will accompany you in the travel. -
|
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 162
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 09, 2003 - 12:01 am: |
|
I'm working on it, but I have a lot other compromises (ending a piece of fanfiction that I promised long ago, building a new website, editing Ricardo Bondoc Strange Days timeline for publication on my website). Don't expect it this week, next week maybe. |
Tom Mazanec (tom)
Registered Member
Username: tom
Post Number: 165
Registered: 01-2002
| | Posted on Monday, July 07, 2003 - 09:11 pm: |
|
Antonio, the fourth part?
Please?
Please, please, please, please, please? |
Forty Seven (fortyseven)
Registered Member
Username: fortyseven
Post Number: 1164
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 09:52 am: |
|
Good story. |
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 159
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, July 02, 2003 - 09:03 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth: A Lost Piece (3rd part)
Colonel Cuevas had been gentle, but firm. They were going to be confined until he knew what was happening. They had been accommodated in the barracks scattered throughout the base, after being interrogated. Ana and Mary were sitting in a bed, talking.
- What's do you think that is happening? Nothing on this situation makes sense. The United Kingdoms of Iberia? And the flag, and the uniforms, and . . . - said Ana
- All right, I take the picture. To me, this seems right from a Twilight Zone episode. - interrupted May
- Twilight Zone? - asked Ana, puzzled
- An old american sci-fi series. My eldest brother is a fan of the series. - the Mary paused, thinking. - Do you think that is possible that the flash which we thought that was a thunderbolt could have transported us to an alternate world? -
- Please, Mary. We are in the real world, not in a sci-fi series. -
- Yes, Your Excellency . . . The plane seems to be english, and have the usual look of a passenger plane . . . Yes, British Airways . . . No, I don't know either a british airline with that name . . . No, we are talking with each one of the passenger separately. 'Till now the stories that they told fit. The flash and all of that, but they seems to have experimented it soon after taking off from Britannia . . . -
After a while, he put the telephone again on its cradle and sighed.
- David, are you still there? - said the general in a loud voice.
Colonel Cuevas entered the room.
- Yes, sir? -
- Sit down, please. I believe that we have a long time until disentangling this unholy mess. In Madrid they are going nuts trying to understand what has happened. Apparently the reports from the french frontier are a bit difficult to believe. -
- Very well - the colonel stood before asking - General, have you had some luck with my petition? -
- I have asked, and all the ships that weren't anchored or near coast have disappeared. That includes the carrier Carlos VII, where your brother was posted . . . I'm sorry, David. But he seems to have disappeared, as has done half of our navy. -
In the same barracks where Ana and Mary were talking a well-dressed man was apparently listening music through his earphones, he even was faking the rhythm. But what he was really doing was listening what the micro that he had managed to hide into Colonel Cuevas uniform was transmitting back to him. He would be able to recover it later.
"Very interesting" he was thinking. |
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 153
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 08:56 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth:A lost piece (2nd part)
The plane was making the final maneuvering before landing, and Ana was clutching nervously the arms of her seat, while Mary was describing what she was seeing through the window.
- We are going to land in an airbase. It seems fairly standard for what I can see of it. -
Since the fighters had appeared, the captain had made only the announcement that "something" had happened, and that the military escort was necessary. Mary was wondering what was that "something", and she didn't like the answers that were coming to her mind. As the rest of the world she had seen, shocked, the 9/11 attacks in the TV, and the restrictions to flight that came later. But what was really bothering her were the fighters which were escorting them. She was familiar what every fighter and most bombers made in the world since the '50s, having inherited the affinity by planes of her father. But that model was unknown to her. The planes had certain resemblance with the F-16s, but was unmistakably different. And there was also the strange ensign that those planes wore.
Then the plane landed. The landing was a bit rougher than they were used, but the captain was a former military pilot and had landed in rough strips with frequency, although admittedly with planes sturdier than the one that he was flying now. But the plane stopped with no incidence, front of a hangar that was subtly different from the ones that he was accustomed to.
After releasing the grip on the arms of her seat, Ana joined Mary in looking through the window. The plane was surrounded by several tough-looking soldiers carrying assault rifles not unlike a cross between an old CETME(1) and an AK-47. The soldiers wore bluish uniforms, military black boots and a crimson beret. Behind them both Mary and Ana saw a flag, waving in the wind. The left third of the flag was light blue, with the rest being the familiar red-yellow-red of the spanish flag, and a coat-of-arms sit just over the divide between both parts. The coat of arms was similar to the current spanish one, but also had an symbol that Mary didn't recognize, but Ana, after a moment identified clearly.
- That symbol was in the portuguese flag! How...-
She interrupted herself when she saw another soldier - a high-ranking officer, she realized
- walking toward the plane. Suddenly the captain announced that they had to get out from the plane by the emergency exits. Most of them were still too shocked by what had happened to do other thing than follow the advice like a sheep to the shepherd. And the ones who has already their wits back were mostly convinced that trying to flee of this situation was pointless. So in a few minutes, all the people that had been travelling in the plane had slide out.
In an acceptable english, the officer began to speak:
- I'm colonel David Cuevas. Apparently have happened something that we don't understand, and we can't make contact with anybody outside our frontiers. Until we manage to make this situation clear, you are guests of the United Kingdoms of Iberia. -
(1) Assault rifle designed in Spain, based in the FG-42 |
Antonio Cabaņas (antonio)
Registered Member
Username: antonio
Post Number: 152
Registered: 08-2002
| | Posted on Tuesday, June 24, 2003 - 08:55 am: |
|
Mosaic Earth:A lost piece (1st part)
- Relax, Ana. The plane has been flying for a while. - said Mary Suffield to her spanish friend, Ana Capote.
Ana and Mary were nurses in a british hospital, and Ana had persuaded Mary to pass the summer holidays in Canarias, where Ana's family lived. Slowly, Ana relaxed her grip in the arms of her seat and released a heavy sigh.
Suddenly all the people in the plane was blinded by a sudden flash. The plane shuddered a bit, but the automatic pilot stabilized the plane even before the pilots recovered their sight.
- Wow! That thunderbolt almost hit us! - said Mary
- A thunderbolt? - said Ana, alarmed.
- What other thing could be? -
What Mary didn't know was that the flash wasn't caused by a thunderbolt. From an unconceivable place, unconceivable beings were reviewing the results of their experiment.
Some time later Ana and Mary were commenting what the pilot had just announced, a technical scale in Oviedo airport, before continuing the flight to Seville and later to Tenerife. The reason? "Technical difficulties"
- The thunderbolt must have hit one of the motors. - said Ana
- Maybe, but I don't think so. - answered Mary
- You are the expert, not me. -
The passenger in the seat before them looked into the window, and started to talk franticly in a language that both nurses didn't know, greek probably. Ana looked into the window, something that she didn't like at all, but her curiosity overrode her fear. There was a fighter jet flying besides the plane. She didn't recognize the model, but before her friend realized that she didn't recognized it either, Ana had noticed that something was very wrong. The ensign of the side of the plane was a circle, the right half had the familiar colors of the spanish flag, red, yellow, red, but the left half was of a light blue color. And although her family wasn't interested in flying, they have been traditionally in the military, some in the navy, but mostly in the army, so she had some knowledge of the ensigns that the different armies of Europe used and that didn't was any of them.
|
|
