vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
scrub

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term.

Comments

[marycatelli]

Snowfall meowed and pushed at the page with a paw.
Sylvie laughed. "I'd rather go scrub floors, but I do have to finish reading. Even if she's just assigning books to keep me busy." She sighed. She could go into the garden as long as she read the rest later.

[marycatelli]

One of them moved his hand in the air as if scrubbing the floor, and all the others laughed uproariously.
What a waste. By their tabards, they had useful dominions, and even some she did not have. But the king's knights could be picked off only one by one, where it would not be noticed. She paused for a moment and forced herself to walk on, pondering the city against the country. Wizards and knights alike would be more easily noticed by others in the city.
Perhaps she might go back to where she hunted alone. That knight in the castle, for instance. It would be impossible to catch him in his castle, and it would not be easy to winkle him out of it, but she could work at the capture without any watchful eyes to interfere. Who, after all, even knew that he existed? Unlike these laughing knights.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

The chaparral down here was as different from the redwood forests around Sparta Point as they were from the vineyards of Lisa's Napa Valley home. But right now it was all the cover she had, and she'd be wise to make the most of it.

So far she had no hard proof that the Feds were indeed using this abandoned facility for some kind of secret project. On the other hand, she didn't have any proof to the contrary. Nothing but inconclusive stories from some of the locals.

It would be ironic if she were in fact pursuing the activities of some other Sharp Resistance group. She knew that Spartan wasn't running the only groups of fighters -- but what she didn't know, she couldn't betray.

But we can sure work at cross purposes. And you're just as dead from a blue-on-blue fight.

[marycatelli]

complications. . . .

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

"Bad news." Lucius slipped alongside Shelly. "They've scrubbed the launch."

And we were counting on having those supplies and equipment in three days. "What happened?"

"As I hear told, bad weather at Kennedy. Conrad and company got lucky with Apollo XII, and the big brains don't want to hope for a repeat."

Shelly suppressed the groan at the obvious pun, calculated the days. "But the launch window's closing tomorrow." And translunar launch windows are monthly, which means it might be irrelevant by the time the next one opens.

"For Kennedy."

Shelly bit back the obvious reply. Yes, there were slight differences in when you could launch from Earth and still make your translunar-injection launch window from LEO, but Baikonur and Tanegashima would only gain a few hours at most, and there was no way to transport the equipment to either within the available time. And the closer you got to your launch window's closing, the tighter your error bars.

Not to mention the serious questions about the loyalties of the people at Baikonur. As she recalled, the guy in command over there was the cosmonaut who'd actually gotten the Aphrodite astronauts to safety. He had a Georgian surname, although as she recalled, he spoke perfect Russian -- but he had also enabled, or at least allowed, that transmission from Tbilisi, all those people burning their red cards.

"If they can pull it off, pick your steakhouse and I'll buy you dinner when we get back to Houston. In the meantime, we'd better plan on having to work without that equipment."

[marycatelli]

Ouch

[marycatelli]

The road was bordered by trees, and not scrub. They towered up, casting shadows. Her gaze went over them. Every now and again, she saw a pale maiden turning sorrowfully away, or two knights hacking at each other with swords that she could see the forest through, or wispy children.