Hull Down: A Military SF First Contact Short Story

by R. Jean Mathieu

The room pulsed around him, its fetid breath almost palpable even through the helmet. The bodies of Commander Wu Suzhen and Major Sam Harris were woven into the wall, a superimposed lovers’ embrace developed in resin and red light. Their shapes were fuzzy; the inside of Matt’s helmet sticky with condensation like his hair was sticky with sweat. His inner ear couldn’t find north or down, his eyes stung and he could taste something salty, but whether blood, sweat or tears, he couldn’t tell. Why did you live?

Matt LeWald had no idea what he was getting himself into when he joined the Marines. He was expecting a few years of service, but instead found himself thrust into a mission gone horribly wrong. As the only survivor, he is left with questions that haunt why did he live when everyone else died?

If you enjoyed Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, you will be enthralled with this strange and haunting tale of first contact and redemption. The reviewers are calling it "not your Dad's military SF." Buy it now, read it over your lunch break, and think about it the rest of your life.

40 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 15, 2018

About the author

R. Jean Mathieu is the fiction writer of all trades. From award-winning stories of the Peace Corps and meditators on Mars (“Gods of War”) to time-traveling mysteries of a Mexican detective solving his own murder (No Time: The First Hour), Mathieu revels in different genres, different voices, and cultural chop suey. Under other noms de plume, he writes romances, thrillers, pulp adventures, Westerns, and mysteries.
Mathieu grew up in Morro Bay, California. He enrolled in college at fifteen, where he would spend the next ten years. With an Associate’s degree in International Studies and $100 in his pocket, Mathieu traveled to China, alternately working as a teahouse server, organic farmhand, Hong Kong movie extra, and English teacher. Despite being deported thrice, he won his degree in Sociology (minoring in Business) over his five years in China, refining his craft along the way. From the streets of Shenzhen to the Thousand-Handed Bodhisattva to the color of industrial sunlight in a mountain town, he continues to draw on the experiences and life lessons he learned there.
He lives in Morro Bay with his wife Melissa, where they keep a good table when not writing side-by-side or chasing trains to the next adventure. A convinced Quaker, he attends Central Coast Friends Meeting in between writing and publishing his fiction, learning new languages, and practicing Uechi-ryu karate. Besides anthologies and magazines, you can find all his stories at Amazon.com and his commentary at RJeanMathieu.com.