This month’s theme:
A Game of Chess
Here are six short stories, one each with a protagonist analogous to a chess piece—pawn, knight, bishop, rook, queen, and king. These are all first-person tales, with characters who echo how the pieces move in the game.

“Pawn”
Science fiction
By David M. Fitzpatrick

I was behind enemy lines with nothing more than my uniform, canteen, and blaster rifle. I’d been trudging through an alien jungle full of blue and orange leaves since my cruiser had gone down the day before. If I could get to the teleportation platform, maybe the Pangalactic Alliance still had a ship in orbit that could retrieve me.

The blazing red sun scorched the jungle through a lemon sky, and I wished it would rain. But I was so close to the teleportation platform that I could taste it. After all, I’d worked hard for the honor I was due today; dying on a disputed planet near Korzali space would ruin that.

Suddenly, as I topped a slight rise amongst the trees, I came face to face with one of them. He carried a blaster rifle too, and we both stopped dead in our tracks. I don’t know why neither of us brought his weapon to bear. We just froze and stared at each other. He was slightly to my left, thus I was slightly to his left.

He was a purple-furred humanoid with a face looking something like a bear and a lion, with bright red eyes.  We stared each other down for what must have been a full minute.

“I won’t fire,” I finally said. “I just want to get off this planet.”

He cocked his head as I talked, listening to the translator in his earpiece. When he replied, I could hear the clicks, whistles, and trills of the Korzali language even as I heard the translation.

“Your people dropped a quake bomb on our base,” he said. “You killed twenty thousand Korzali.”

“You’ve killed even more Alliance troops.”

“We claim this world—!”

“Listen, let’s not debate the politics. Either we’re shooting each other or going our separate ways.”

He nodded, sighing, and gestured behind him. “Just leave. I give you safe passage.”

I wanted to… but to walk by and have my back to him? I’d heard the stories of how brutal and cruel the Korzali had been to Alliance prisoners. They were not to be trusted. And missing earning my honor because I got shot in the back on this planet would suck.

I met his eyes, and I saw his fear. I think he just wanted to make it out alive, so I nodded. I stepped forward, slowly and carefully, until I was side by side with him. I stopped and turned my head, and we met gazes. I’d never been this close to a Korzali before.

“Well met, Alliance man,” he said, nodding. “Be safe.”

He stepped past me.

In the periphery of my vision, I saw that he wasn’t walking straight ahead. He had stepped behind me, and I heard the telltale sound of a boot pivoting in the dirt.

I dropped as I spun, and the red fire erupting from his blaster singed the hair on my head. I returned fire, point blank at his gut. He flew backward and crumpled into a heap. Beyond me, the tree his deadly blast had hit smoked.

He’d tried to take me in passing, and I was lucky to be alive. I kicked his downed rifle away, then stood back and waited. Presently, he stirred, struggling into a sitting position. He looked at my blaster in his face.

“You tried to kill me,” I said. “I only stunned you. I won’t next time.”

His terrified eyes were wide, but he got the message. He clambered to his feet and hurried away through the jungle.

Once he was a good distance away, I ran as fast as I could for the teleportation platform. I had to get there before he found his companions and I had an army on top of me. Luckily, I was very close and was there in minutes; the clearing, with a broad, gleaming metal disc ten meters across, wasn’t overrun with Korzali. I hurried onto the platform and turned on my transponder. Almost immediately, I felt the disc beneath my feet hum, and the air vibrate around me, and I was instantly teleported to a familiar ship: My captain was there to greet me.

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Commander Ponn,” said Captain Kasparov. “We thought we’d lost you when your cruiser went down. But you delivered the quake bomb successfully.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That was damn heroic,” he said, “and as you know you’re due for a promotion. So let’s make it official: I hereby promote you to Commander.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Any trouble en route to the platform?”

“A bit, sir. I ran into a lone Korzali near the end.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you take him out?”

I thought of him running scared through the jungle, wondering why I’d spared him, even as I thought of letting that quake bomb go—imagining the thousands of them who died then. A shiver ran through my body.

I sighed. “I handled it, sir.”

“Knight”
Superhero
By David M. Fitzpatrick

It was my first night out as the city’s newest vigilante hero. I was eager to punish some evildoers, but I was nervous about going it alone. There were some big heroes with major powers and resources who teamed up, as duos or even leagues. I didn’t know how the lone vigilantes did it, but I was willing to find out.

It didn’t take long. I was walking down the street when I heard a woman’s scream coming from an alleyway behind a nightclub. I ducked down the alley and ran, quite easily in my long trenchcoat and big fedora pulled low.

I rounded the corner into a back alley and saw the woman running toward me, screeching for help. Two men were in pursuit, one with a bloody nose and the other with a split lip. She’d gotten her licks in.

“Get behind me!” I cried.

She did, and I squared off against them. They skidded to stop ahead of me, one to my left and the other further away to my right.

“She hit us with her purse!” Bloody Nose snarled.

“She must have a brick in it!” Split Lip roared.

“They tried to rape me!” the woman cried out behind me.

I reached up and pulled my fedora off and tossed it aside, and shed my trenchcoat. I wore a skintight black jumpsuit and a Lone Ranger-style mask. They stared for a moment and then burst out laughing.

“That’s a weak-ass costume,” Bloody Nose said.

I summoned the power and felt it surge out from my spine. The force field expanded until it created an energy field two inches from my skin, and I was encased in it. It glowed silver as I strengthened it, and I stood before them, shimmering like liquid metal.

“You’ve made a grave mistake,” I said. “Now you’ll face... Cavalier!”

I planned my attack and launched. I leaped into the air, ten feet up and twenty forward, bearing left as I did to land beside him. I laid my hand on his chest and hit him with a kinetic blast that knocked him backward and out cold. I leaped again, this time bearing to my right and touching Split Lip, blasting him backward. I backed up and to my right, surveying my work. Not bad for my first encounter.

“Impressive!” said the young lady behind me. “The silver force field, the jumping—and what did you do to them?”

“It’s all the force field,” I said. “I can focus it—make myself leap, limited flight control, and deliver kinetic energy when I touch someone.”

She sauntered up, smiling. “Cavalier, huh? New on the scene?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

“I don’t have a brick in my purse,” she said. “I have a power, too.”

I lowered the force field. “Do tell.

She held up her leather purse and turned to the concrete building. She wound up, spinning the purse, and I saw it spark and crackle with orange electricity. When she hit it against the building, the purse was rigid, and clanged into the wall. She held it up, and I could see that it was made of steel. And as I watched, it morphed back into a leather purse again.

“I can transform objects temporarily into other elements,” she said. “I’d like to do what you’re doing, Cavalier—but it’s just one power. It’s cool, but not really hero material.”

“It could be,” I said. “You could come up with a leather costume and transform it into armor.”

She cocked her head at me. She was definitely flirting. “Hey, good idea. Maybe you need a sidekick. Cavalier and Squire, perhaps?”

Maybe this was a partnership worth pursuing—as a hero and as a man. I smiled and extended my hand. “Glen Gallant. Can I buy you a drink?”

She shook it, and her touch was as electric as her smile, her twinkling eye, and her alteration power. “Victoria Voss. And I think I owe you the drink.”

“Bishop”
Vampire
By David M. Fitzpatrick

It was late, and the big stone church was empty. I was dusting the altar, ready to head upstairs to the rectory and turn in, but I was troubled. I’d been wrestling with another crisis of faith, something I’d done often ring my theological career, but it wasn’t something I revealed to my confessor. I had to work it out on my own.

I heard an ominous creak, and then cold air blew through the sanctuary. Someone had entered the church.

I looked up as the man stepped into the arched doorway to the back corner of the sanctuary. He was big and imposing, well over six feet tall with a barrel chest and hulking shoulders.

“Good evening,” I said. “I’m Father Jack Parsons. What do you need?”

He smiled as he took slow steps down the side aisle. “Oh, I need you, Jack. When I’m in desperate need of feeding but cannot find a lone victim, there’s always a priest alone in a church at night.”

He got halfway down the aisle and stopped, smiling wider, and I saw the fangs. My blood chilled, and I moved around the altar and descended the steps to face him. I stood at end of the center aisle, diagonal from where he stood at the left side of the big room. The wall behind him had one of the many artifacts displayed around the sanctuary, and that one mattered the most. It was a morning star—a spiked mace—the only weapon in the place.

“So you’re here to drink my blood?”

“I am.”

“No respect for a man of the cloth?”

He laughed. “Not at all. I’m an atheist, Jack. You religious types have done more damage to people over the ages than vampires ever have.”

In that moment, everything became clear. I’d certainly considered the problem of evil before, but this was a creature born of evil and who freely drank the blood of God’s faithful servants, in God’s houses. No deity would allow such a terrible sacrilege.

“I’m also an atheist,” I said.

His smile vanished. “You... don’t look it.”

“I’ve been considering it. But you, just now, have made me realize why it’s bunk.”

“Moving story. I’m still going to drink your blood and take your life.”

I shrugged. “Do your worst.”

I’d heard the stories—that vampires could fly, move really fast, turn into bats, etc. I hoped they were wrong—especially the one about a needing a wooden stake through the heart to kill them. I had to time my next move perfectly. I was thinking about triangles and hypotenuses.

He strode forward, away from the morning star, and I steeled myself. He was big, but unless he had that rumored superhuman speed he’d never move fast enough—so long as I didn’t lose my balance.

I readied myself as he rounded the front pew and headed for me, wielding his leering, fanged grin. When he had closed half the distance, I made my move.

I leaped up onto the pew, then onto the top of the pew’s back, which was at least flat and broad. I leaped diagonally to the pew in the second row, and then to the next. He roared as I went, but I never slowed. I just kept my eye on the pews ahead as I made my diagonal path, pew to pew, even as I heard his pounding feet as he ran back along his route. He’d figured out what I was doing, and was trying to beat me there.

When I made it to the last pew and leaped for the wall, he was still twenty feet away. My hands wrapped around the weapon as my feet hit the floor; I wrenched it free from its holder and spun about, swinging it at him.

It connected, and he toppled backward. Bright blue blood spewed from a gash on his throat. His body flailed on the stone floor even as it began to burn, seeming to combust everywhere all at once. It sizzled like meat on a fire; his flesh seemed to evaporate until only his bones were left. Then they burned to ash and blew away on the cold wind that permeated the church.

I left that night—left the building, the priesthood, and my crises of faith all behind me. But I took the morning star. Defeating the forces of evil wouldn’t happen from a pulpit with a book of fables. There were vampires; reality was far more fascinating.

“Rook”
Fantasy
By David M. Fitzpatrick

From the castle, I’d always looked at the faraway hill, atop which was an old stone tower. The tower had been the home of a king centuries ago, long before the castle’s construction. I wasn’t really interested in such a pointless field trip, but three years ago I had come to the kingdom and sworn to serve its monarch.

“My ancestor, the first king of the realm, built that tower before erecting the castle here,” King Morphy said. “I’ve often wondered why. This location is lower and flatter, but that hilltop where the old tower stands is far more defensible. I haven’t been there since I was a boy, but there’s some sort of magic protecting it. We could never even get in. There are ancient stories of a curse—that the first king had locked someone away there long ago. I want you to check it out, Rukh. I think I might construct a new castle there.”

“But you love this castle, sire,” I said, hoping I could talk him out of even considering such a ridiculous idea. “It has been your family’s pride for generations.”

He nodded, sighing. “Yes, Rukh, but with the impending troubles with unfriendly kingdoms, perhaps it’s time to consider defensive strategies.”

He wasn’t wrong. Directly south of the castle was the kingdom, with a sprawling city and surrounding towns—the easiest way to reach the castle, should one invade. Directly west was a series of hills upon which the king’s armies held forts and keeps. Directly north was Mount Fischer, a towering wall between the kingdom and northern invaders. To the far east was a long range of a dozen mountains, but directly east, below the mountains, was the hill atop which the tower stood.

I had better things to do, but the king had given me my orders, so I invoked a spell to fly and moved straight for it. When I got there, I found it with wood-shuttered windows and a single wooden door. I landed and worked another spell to feel out its magic, and the king was right: There was a curious magic, strong enough to protect the tower but not one that I had yet detected from the castle. Fascinating.

I cast a hung spell to summon a giant fist of blue magical energy, and I hurled it at the door. It hit with a resounding crash, but the door held. I drew it back and sent it in again, over and over, until finally my spell overcame the defensive magic of the tower. The door burst inward.

I dispelled the fist and entered the tower. It was empty save for a staircase that followed the wall, spiraling up to a second floor. That was full of books and tomes by the hundreds; this was once the tower of a powerful wizard. Floor by floor I went, passing more books, and shelves full of items that I could feel were powerfully enchanted. Swords and wands, armor and staves, scrolls and potions—it was a wizard’s treasure trove indeed.

At the fifth and top floor, there was more of the same—but this was a laboratory with beakers full of colorful, bubbling liquids. An old man in robes sat at a table, reading from a big tome, and he turned his white-haired head to me when I entered.

“It has been a long time,” he said. “Finally, another wizard has broken the magic that has sealed me in for so long. Thank you, friend. I will finally depart this plane of existence. The tower is yours. But I suggest relocating it. The castle across the way sits atop a major source of magic, unlocked now that you have freed me. You’ll do well to move the tower there.”

The wooden shutters flew open on a dozen windows around the circular room’s perimeter, and wind rushed in. The ancient wizard turned to smoke before my eyes and dissipated forever.

I moved to the window and surveyed the castle in the distance, opening my magic sense, which was amplified by the powerful magic of the tower. I could see that the entire hill atop which the castle sat was aglow with blue magic; I could hear it humming, feel it vibrating, even from here.

Yes, there was more to this than serving the king. If he wanted the castle here, I’d work a grand spell—one that would basically swap the tower and the castle. I could see in my mind how I’d do it—how the castle would rise into the air and sail across the valley, setting down on this hill, and then how the tower would rise above it and sail over to its new home. With the magic in this tower, and my new connection to whatever underlaid the castle lands, it would be easy.

I was sworn to serve King  Morphy, but once he was gone, my allegiance would be to me—and to the massive magical power that I’d command.

Yes, this had been a worthwhile field trip after all!

“Queen”
Dystopian
By David M. Fitzpatrick

These bitches messed with the wrong bitch.

It was a turf war, of course. Women had overcome men three thousand years before, introducing viral genetic engineering to tone down the testosterone and rid the world of their violence. But it didn’t take Mother Nature long to compensate; women quickly became bigger, stronger, and more aggressive. We became the new men. Wars returned. Rampant killing, rapes of men the world over, and other horrible things that humanity used to cringe over as men committed them. Full circle.

Evolution by natural selection is quite simple: When a mutation is beneficial and is passed on to subsequent generations, it becomes dominant. That isn’t what happened to me, of course. But those bitches didn’t know.

They had been harassing me regularly, and they’d chased me down streets; I easily outran them, but they thought I was running scared. No; I was running to avoid killing them. But I’d had it. So today when they chased me I didn’t run as fast as usual. I led them on an epic chase through the city and into the massive junkyard at the northern outskirts. The eight women surrounded me, and mountains of waste towered around all of us.

“You usually move a lot faster,” said the leader, a tall, powerful, muscular woman. “How is it you move so fast?”

“Genetic engineering three thousand years ago,” I said. “The best we can figure is that the virus they used to tame the men went haywire in my female ancestor. Maybe there was some gender anomaly. Whatever it was, it made her as physically strong as any man of the tim. And those genes have only perpetuated down my family line since.”

They looked uneasily at each other. “Why tell us this?”

“I wanted you to know you had it coming.”

They closed on me, brandishing weapons, and I went into action.

I moved fast and in every direction. They could barely even think; I’d move one way, swipe my knife across a throat; move another way, break a neck; move backward, knife to the gut; move ahead and to my right, kick to a face. They dropped, one after the other, bloodied and dying and dead. And I never stopped moving. I waded through them like a robot powered by anger and violence and sheer skill.

When it was over, seven lay dead. The leader, clutching her severed carotid artery, was trying in vain to keep the blood from squirting out.

“Who are you?” she gasped.

“I’m the queen of the world,” I said, and I stomped my foot down on her arm. It tore her hand away from her throat, and I watched as the blood sprayed and the light went out in her eyes.

I left the bodies and found somewhere in the junkyard to be alone, and I cried. I cried that I’d had to do that, and cried that I’d enjoyed it. I cried for who and what I was. I cried for what we’d done centuries before to men. Mostly, I cried for what women had become.

I cried for the human race.

“King”
Mainstream
By David M. Fitzpatrick

I didn’t move all that well, what with my weak, undeveloped legs. I had for years used twin forearm canes to get around, and I hadn’t been looked down on for it.

“It’s cold,” my wife said.

“Are you all right?”

She shivered, looking over at me with her heart-shaped, ebony face. “I’ll be fine. Are you ready for this?”

“More than ever.”

The events leading up to noon were many, but finally it was my turn. Kelly helped me to my feet as the crowd cheered and I made my way to where Chief Justice Ricardo Gonzalez waited. Kelly carried my first-edition original of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. And soon, after years of hard work, there I was, hand on the book, my nipples feeling like ice cubes on my breasts in the January cold, my wife holding my arm, repeating my promise to the nation and the world:

“I, Kamiko King, do solemnly affirm that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

As the crowd erupted in applause, shaking the city all the way from the Capitol to the White House, and my new vice president and her husband joined us, I saw us on the towering screen. There we were:

The Chief Justice, Ricardo Gonzalez, a straight transvestite wearing a lace collar with his robes, his hair done tastefully in a cascading hairdo of blue and red curls, his face perfectly made up, his big, dangling diamond earrings gleaming in the January sun...

The Vice President, a full-blooded Cherokee, with her husband, a Pacific Islander...

My wife, a Black African immigrant born male and genetically converted to female...

And me—Asian American, atheist, lesbian, physically disabled.

Such things had mattered not too long ago, but we’d grown past it. Now I would enter the Oval Office as the world’s most powerful person, leading sixty-two states as the nation’s president and the Supreme Commander of World Forces to stand against the few remaining nations unwilling to accept the unified future of the planet. There had been many opponents, both in the primaries and the general election, who had tried to corner me and force me to resign my candidacy, but they’d all failed.

Kelly kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “How do you feel?”

“I feel like getting to work,” I said. “Let’s find that limousine and get to the West Wing.”

David M. Fitzpatrick is a fiction writer in Maine, USA. His many short stories have appeared in print magazines and anthologies around the world. He writes for a newspaper, writes fiction, edits anthologies, and teaches creative writing. Visit him at www.fitz42.net/writer to learn more.