Quiet Like Fire

quiet like fire

copyright information

This is an original publication of Stories Rule Press

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2025 by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Text design by Tracy Cooper-Posey

Edited by Mr. Intensity, Mark Posey

Cover design by Dar Albert

http://WickedSmartDesigns.com

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

FIRST EDITION: April 2025

Cooper, Cameron

Fiction, Science Fiction, Alternative History, War,

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Space cities have been locked in war for centuries over the resources of an asteroid belt.

Humans pilot swarms of pod fighters to protect their city’s mining operations from other cities, risking everything and suffering multiple deaths and regenerations. Then Landry goes through a regeneration which introduces an error that will destroy the delicate balance of the war.

Resilience is a space opera short story by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.

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Epic science fiction at its finest. Realistic far future worlds. Incredible characters and scenarios. – Amazon reader.

This short story has not been commercially released for sale. It is only available as a gift to readers who subscribe to Cam’s email list.

See details about this offer when you have finished Quiet Like Fire.

Table of Contents

Half Title Page

copyright information

special offer – free science fiction

about quiet like fire

praise for cam’s science fiction

about the author

dedication

Title Page

epitaph

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

epilogue

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did you enjoy this book? how to make a big difference!

other books by cameron cooper

this is a stories rule press title

about quiet like fire

In a fractured near-future, the United States has crossed the northern border—and nothing will ever be the same.

Evan Cano is a medic in occupied Alberta, treating wounds on both sides of a war she never chose: Homies, Maplebacks, and everyone caught in between.

When her wife disappears and the Dominion Defense Network offers protection at a cost, Evan is forced to flee. Across mountains. Across borders. Across the line between survival and resistance.

Other standalone fiction by Cameron Cooper:

And We Danced All Night

A Place for Everyone

A Room of Her Own

Resilience

Space Opera Firsts

Galactic Reflections

He Really Meant It

Quiet Like Fire

Also (only from Stories Rule Press):

The standalone fiction Special Bundle

Cameron Cooper’s Super-Bundle

Science Fiction Novella

praise for cam’s science fiction

Epic science fiction at its finest. Realistic far future worlds. Incredible characters and scenarios.

The concepts are staggering and intensely interesting.

This story is terrific! It’s intriguing and futuristic and human in its telling.

about the author

Cameron Cooper is the author of the Imperial Hammer space opera series, among others, and is the pen name used by bestselling author Tracy Cooper-Posey. As Cameron Cooper, she writes science fiction short stories and novels, including space opera. As Tracy Cooper-Posey, she writes historical suspense, romance, plus women’s fiction. She also writes contemporary, epic and urban fantasy stories and novels as Taylen Carver.

She has published over 200 titles under all pen names since 1999, is an Aurealis Award Finalist, has been nominated for five CAPAs including Favourite Author, and won the Emma Darcy Award. She turned to indie publishing in 2011. Her indie titles have been nominated four times for Book of The Year. Tracy won the award in 2012, a SFR Galaxy Award in 2016 and came fourth in Hugh Howey’s SPSFC#2 in 2023. She is currently a city magazine editor and for a decade she taught writing at MacEwan University.

She is addicted to Irish Breakfast tea and chocolate, sometimes taken together. In her spare time she enjoys history, Sherlock Holmes, science fiction and fantasy and ignoring her treadmill. An Australian Canadian, she lives in Edmonton, Canada with her husband, a former professional wrestler, where she moved in 1996 after meeting him on-line.

dedication

For all my friends who live below the 49th.

quiet like fire

By

Cameron Cooper

Stories Rule Press

War cannot be humanized. It can only be abolished.

—Albert Einstein

War does not work, not even for the warriors.

—Ursula Franklin

1.

I knew the homie was dying. Only saying so would earn me a bullet in the right temporal lobe from the Glock—or maybe it was a Smith & Wesson—the DC dog waved around every time I looked up. The officer’s grubby name tape told me he was BRAND.

I didn’t know the name. He was a newcomer to Crowsnest Pass. Probably because the DDN had taken out the 91st’s C.O. last week.

I didn’t need signage to tell me Brand was upset, even though he was the quietest one in the room.

There were five others in full combat gear, standing around with their camouflage-painted M18+ assault rifles in both hands. They were shouting at each other, while their comrade on the table in front of me groaned and writhed. I wasn’t paying much attention to the shouting. The bits I picked up were about who was going to take it in the face for the fuck-up that had led directly to their mate taking a bullet in the thigh.

They should rightfully be out in the waiting room, not dirtying up my treatment room, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. I valued a pain-free existence.

I focused on securing the tourniquet around my patient’s leg. I reefed on the strap and locked it down.

Bleeding’s slowing, Brand observed.

I held my teeth together. The bleeding was slowing because the homie was running out of blood. He’d lost liters of it before they’d plunked him on the table. The bleeding they couldn’t stop was the reason they’d diverted to the clinic here in Blairmore, instead of heading back to their base lower down the valley.

Now, the bullet, woman, Brand added.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

I moved over to the cabinets and pulled out one of the last sterile kits in the cupboard, pulled over a rolling table, opened the packet and spread the equipment. I hesitated to use the sterile gloves. The patient wasn’t going to live long enough to incubate an infection, and the clinic was short on gloves…

Brand watched me with narrowed eyes, the Glock—yeah, pretty sure it was a Glock—nestled in the crook of his arm, which coincidentally meant it was still pointing at me.

I put the gloves on. Turn him over so I can get at the back of his leg, I told the homies. I spoke loudly enough to be heard, which meant I was yelling.

They gaped at me.

Do it, Brand said softly.

They let their rifles hang while they carefully turned their comrade over. He stopped groaning and screamed, instead.

I moved the trolley around the table and positioned myself over the wounded leg. I leaned in, visualizing where I thought the bullet was. The x-ray machine wasn’t working, but since the war broke out twenty months ago, I’d got very good at figuring out the path of a bullet through the human body.

Wait, Brand said in the same soft voice.

I looked up.

Brand had pale blue eyes, narrowed suspiciously. I put him at early forties, not much younger than me, but with silver grey hair that had probably been black, not so long ago. You haven’t applied a local, Brand pointed out.

I lowered the scalpel. I don’t have any. We were expecting a care package from the Middle Kingdom any day now that might have local anesthetic in it, but delivery was always uncertain, given the obstacle course the packages went through. That Canadians got regular care packages smuggled in from our unofficial Chinese allies wasn’t something I was going to tell a captain of the Homeland Force—North Command of the United States. So I just looked at him, waiting for permission to continue. I was in no