The Retreat

People in many worlds fight the same thing: betrayal, oppression, brute violence, ignorance. They rise to the occasion in different ways – or fail to rise. The sapient dogs of kudzu-covered Atlanta escaped slavery, came together in the Great Pack, and now seek to strike against their once Masters. Two immortal men from a dead Brotherhood choose different paths to the same end: dragging mankind up out of the muck and into the stars on their world. In deep space, the seeds of violent conspiracy are laid when a transport ship is detonated beneath its crew, leading to an investigation which could turn up that which cannot be put down again. In another time, a 20-foot long Utahraptor from the Cretaceous is elected president with unexpected results, including his campaign promise: “I Probably Won’t Eat You.” What’s going on here? How are these things related? Is this science fiction or fantasy? Questions. There are always questions. (This is the  90 page pilot of a t...

HELLSTAR-1 EXT. DEEP SPACE Stars in their multitude. The shadowy arc of the galactic plane cuts crazily at an angle, slowly spinning like an unfixed horizon. A ragged SPACESHIP tumbles along with us, rolling, fixed in our view. It's no polished gleaming wonder; instead it's grimy and rough, slipshod and framework-beaten. There's no clear cockpit, just a messy expanse of tangled superstructure like a wall made of cranes. The rear of the ship is ripped off, trailing a few hundred meters behind the front, twisting at a slightly different rate. PILOT (VO) I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be making my cargo on time this run. CRATES spill out of the gap between front and rear, a fist full of different colors but all three spherical tanks within the frame of a rectangular prism. CLOSE ON A CRATE MARKED "INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT" SPORTING A BIOHAZARD SYMBOL PILOT (VO) That load of apes for the mines on Proxima wasn't going to make...