Spartan short story

It was a dark and stormy night. The nights on New Chelmsford have been stormy for the past 3 years. Angry Goth English Majors hacked into the weather control software. It started when one of the English majors working on a summer technical writing internship discovered that the base software interpreter still possessed universal GOTO commands. The hackers turned clean modern 23rd century code into spaghetti code in only 5 days. You would have figured that modern software code had finally gotten rid of the universal GOTO command just because it was so dangerous. Well the plus side was that every dark and stormy night was followed by a wonderful spring day. Enrico Fermi Technical Community College (“Go Fighting Hadrons!”) was given a government grant to fix the hack and make the weather control software idiot proof. The college used the grant money to hire an army of Goth software majors and of course an army of Goth English majors to document the work.
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New Chelmsford was a 3rd generation human space habitat. The refurbished hull was a gift from the Spartan Federation. A space colony for humans with "normal human genome". Well gene modification was permitted for medical reasons of course. NC was one of many habitats which enjoyed a happy trading relationship with Sparta, they even had a large embassy complex. Spartan mutants even Spartan Centaurs were a common sight in the colony.


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First generation space habitats were designs which had started with the Princeton physicist O’Neal and his friends who started up the “L5 Club” in the late 20th century. Oddly enough these people were seen as a cultural fringe element always foaming at the mouth ranting about “Solar Power Satellites” and “Space-faring Civilization”.

Sad these visionaries were not listened to in the 20th century. The world economy changes could have prevented the middle east nuke exchange of 2021. A hundred years of school children had that spintronic solid state storage web video branded in their souls. The angry mullah cursing all of Israel and their distorted belief in the one true God. A second later spontaneous combustion of anything organic in the rococo Iranian mosque. Only Israel's military knew the dirty little secret that a large portion of their nuclear deterrent were french designed neutron bombs.

From 2021 to 2060 there was a very large exodus into the inner solar system. Developed countries plus major religions decided that it was time to go while the getting was good. USA's defense program was totally shunted into it's space program. Illegal immigration became a great excuse to take over all of central america and the Carribian basian.

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Jackie Radon got up before sunrise, it was still dark and stormy outside. She was totally looking forward to her riding/therapy session with her Centaur counselor/girl scout mentor Dr.Faro.
She wandered half awake into the automated kitchen. Her lunchbox on the counter by the sink activated recognized her and displayed her mother's image.
"Hey Pookie, made you a pepperoni meatloaf sub and got a bag of apple pears for Dr. Faro from the 3rd shift hydroponic crew. Tell the Doc to check the ripe label before he sinks his teeth into the fruit some are hard and need a few days to ripen. Love ya babe! Give old flea bag a hug for me!"
Jackie smiled when she heard "old flea bag" grabbed the lunch box, apple pears and 2 homemade strawberry peanut butter smoothies from the cold stainless steel frig.
She packed her knapsack with the food and her homework tablets and sprinted out of the condo with the energy that only a teen had in abundance.

Dr. Faro was waiting for her before the riding path going into one of New Chelmsford's woodland parks. He already was dressed and saddled for the morning ride and therapy session they were going to have that morning.
As she approached the centaur brought out from his knapsack 2 electronic telepathy head bands with right eye monitor screen.

"Good morning little grasshopper" the centaur slowly spoke in a deep rich baritone voice. With an exaggerated flourish he placed the head band on Jackie's head.
"I crown thee Princess Bizarre of Narnia."
Jackie waited for the Doc to put on his head band. They both turned on the unit and watch through the eye monitor waiting for it to boot up. When both units were operational on a private channel she thought at him.

*Doc Faro you don't get off that easy!
I want a 10 second hug and a wet kiss on my cheek, RIGHT NOW!*

The centaur thought back.
*Do I have your solemn promise that you are not going to tickle me on my sides while we ride?*

*Oh alright I solemnly promise not to tickle your sides while we ride, you big baby!*

The muscled centaur swept Jackie in the air with both bulging arms and help her tight to his enormous sculptured chest. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. He returned the kiss to her cheek and held her tight for a good 20 seconds.

*" Okay princess you ready for a good ride"*
*"Yes I am!"*

He gently lowered the girl, and winked at her radiant smiling face. Jackie grabbed her luggage and packed everything on the 2 saddlebags making sure they were balanced by weight. She mounted her friend slipping into the handsome black leather saddle.

*"Wait Doc, before you gallop off I have a fun song we can listen to over the telepathy channel I found it while wandering on the net. Okay it is all cued up, giddy up Doc!"*

The muscle bound centaur and girl galloped down the state park trail. In their heads Steven Tyler was screaming" I'm back in the saddle again".

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It was a dark and stormy night in the large mercury city state. Once again the weather control machinery was on the fritz . And of course the hardware engineers were blaming the software code monkeys and the software staff was blaming the mech and EE's because of course their code was written with the "hand of God". The only people profiting were the local bakers who were known for their most excellent donuts and pastries making these confrontational quality meetings pleasant and lasting all the way till lunch where the bakery took orders for their most excellent cal zones and poor boys.