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The second installment of my homage to classic SF author Keith Laumer is now featured in the June edition over at Digital Dragon magazine.

I placed a story with Digital Dragon magazine last year called Blessed Are the Peacemakers about a former space marine named Tenerife who has just started a new career with the Terran Diplomatic Corp. It’s now a year later and Digital Dragon magazine asked me if I’d consider sending them another story. It occurred to me that there are a total of eight beatitudes, so I wrote a new Tenerife story called Blessed Are the Persecuted. However, while last year’s story came in at an economical 2250 words, this one is triple that word-count. Due to the length of this story, I pitched the idea of splitting this one in half, and they agreed. Therefore, Part 1 is running now in June, and the triumphant conclusion will appear in July.

If last year’s Tenerife story was my Star Wars, this year’s is my Empire Strikes Back. It’s longer, bolder, darker, and deals with more weighty issues. In this story, we meet some familiar faces, and introduce new ones, including a complex alien race called the Garconne, who… well, you’ll see:

“After the Klakx, I understand the Garçonne are quite peaceable.”
“Oh, they are, as far as we know. The question is ‘why?’ They have no standing military that we can see.”
“Maybe they’re standing somewhere else.”
Phlagg laughed. “Where do I begin?” He started ticking things off on his fingers. “The Garçonne are shorter than we are. They’re apparently gentle beings who excel at cuisine, the arts, and making colorful, ingenious devices with their slim, nimble fingers. They don’t have hair on their heads the way we do. Instead, they’re covered head-to-toe with a fine, downy fur. They have an subtle sense of humor and the most interesting lavender eyes.”
Tenerife raised an eyebrow. “Lavender?”
Phlagg blushed. “Whatever. Purpleish, yeah.”
Tenerife crossed his arms and shook his head. “I still don’t get it. Militarily-speaking, the Garçonne sound remarkably unremarkable. I wonder what Rache’s real interest is?”
Phlagg couldn’t resist a knowing smile, almost as if he’d been waiting to deliver a punchline. “It’s a matter of the sexes.” He paused for effect. “All three of them.”

I hope you enjoy Part 1 of the story, and I’d love to hear from you if you like (or hate!) it.

“Blessed Are the Peacemakers,” an homage to Keith Laumer’s ‘Retief’ character, is the featured story in today’s issue of Digital Dragon magazine:
http://www.digitaldragonmagazine.net/

A former space marine is caught between his principles and his duty as he juggles working for an old enemy while trying to forge a crucial treaty with a ferocious alien race.

With this story, I tried to write something that was both fully Science Fiction and fully Christian. I like how it turned out. Thanks again to Tim Ambrose and Randy Streu for letting me play in their playground.

Stick around for the author’s bio at the end. I had some fun with it.
http://www.digitaldragonmagazine.net…eacemakers.php