15 Stories for 15 Days: Day One

The 15 for 15 contest is held about once every nine months or so. The way it works is that every day at 8:30 WDC time, a picture prompt is posted. You have 24 hours to post your story that the prompt inspires. Here is the interesting part: You only have 15 minutes to write your story. You can think about it all day but once you start writing, 15 minutes is what you get.

ID: 994771   (Rated: 18+) 15 for 15 Contest   Do you have 15 minutes? Come in and join this contest! by Legerdemain (221)

The contest is limited to 50 competitors. Each day, there are 5 winners. First place will get 1004 points, second place will get 1003 points etc. The person with the most total points at the end of the 15 day contest is the winner.

The prompt for this story is the following picture:

My Entry

The troopers fanned out from the dropship, quickly establishing a defensive, anti-flanking posture.

A moment later, Buck Hightower strode out of the hatch, a cigar gripped tightly in his mouth. He could tell in an instant that they were too late. The signature blue hue of everything indicated the planet was already well into a phase shift. This time tomorrow, it would be gone altogether; supposedly transferred to a time-space where its resources could be harvested as leisure.

Another planet had been lost to the Time Miners.

“Spread out in pairs. Look for any evidence of what took place. I want to know where these assholes went to from here.”

Immediately, his men spread out looking for anything that would help them get a badly needed head start against an enemy who controlled time itself.

Most home-world physicists believed that such a lead would be theoretically impossible since the Time Miners probably jump ahead in time periodically to make sure no actions from their past adversely affected their future. It was all very confusing.

Hightower wasn’t a big fan of “confusing.”

In his world, there was nothing that couldn’t be solved by blunt-force-trauma. That’s what made this mission so frustrating for him. There was no enemy to confront.

“Sir, we have found indications that they know about us. It’s reasonable to expect them to eliminate the threat we represent. They will harvest Earth next.”

Hightower scowled at the news. Attack his home world? How dare they!

It was time to take the battle to the enemy.

“Sergeant!”

“Sir!”

“Call the Mother-ship. I want every soldier and every piece of armament we have on this plant’s surface in two hours.”

“But sir, the planet is in phase-shift. It won’t be here for much longer.”

Hightower smiled. “I know. But it will be somewhere. This is going to be one Trojan horse they’ll wish then never brought inside the gates.”