Author : Paul Bort The stars twinkled as they always had; a hint of purple in the west showed where we had missed sunset, the better part of an hour ago. But most spectacular was the Aurora Borealis, flickering, twisting, glowing in the shades of green and blue that I could never reproduce on a [...]
Author : Ian Rennie Anton opens the door with a blank face. He is worried, but can’t show it any more. “How’s she doing?” I ask. “Not good,” Anton replies, expression neutral and voice flat, “I think she’s dying.” I move past him without a word. Laverne is lying in bed, her breathing shallow and [...]
Author : Claire Webber “Excuse me, miss?” he said, raising a finger to get the stewardess’ attention. “Yes, how can I help you?” she said with a smile. Her accent was faint, and a single curl poked out of her modest hijab printed with the airline’s logo. “I’d like a copy of the New York [...]
Author : John Logan The metal clasps dug into my arms as they strapped me to the chair. I spat on one of the guards and called into question the loyalty of his wife. He raised his hand to strike but the other guard stopped him with a simple movement of the eyes. “Let me [...]
Author : Ken McGrath The car pulled to a stop overlooking the city. “There it is kids. Dublin, where your old Dad grew up? What do you think?” “It doesn’t look like the postcard Dad,” Amy said, looking up momentarily from her computer game and at least showing some sort of interest. Her sister just [...]
Author : Matthew Forish It was cold. Of course it was cold. Now though, I could feel the cold. Feeling returned to my body, and a faint light was starting to filter in through my closed eyelids. I was waking up. Thoughts filled my mind. I was shivering, hungry, thirsty and quite stiff. A hum [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer Blue. That’s the colour I remember the most in that operating theater. It was the last honest colour I would ever see. I had them installed as part of my training. It was something I had a choice over. I regret that decision now but it was a one-way [...]
Author : Helstrom They call her “The Flying Dutchman”. Don’t ask me what a Dutchman is, or whether or not it is supposed to fly – it’s apparently taken from one of old Earth’s folk tales. It doesn’t really matter, but I suppose every ship needs a name. The Flying Dutchman goes by many different [...]
Author : Roi R. Czechvala “…but I think,” it said “No, you process.” “I dream,” it replied. “You analyze.” “Cogito ergo sum,” it asked hopefully. “No, Cogito, ergo SUM.” The overworked engineer’s voice was strained. His patience was wearing thin. He thought of his three year old daughter at home. Was this so different? “I [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer The attack cruiser Etherwolf docked at the Alliance Refueling Station orbiting Vesta, the second largest planetoid in the asteroid belt. Captain Olbers disembarked the Etherwolf and was greeted by the Station Commander. Sarah Wilhelm saluted sharply, and then extended her right hand. “Ah, Captain Olbers,” she said with a broad smile. [...]
Author : David Dykes Geoff said to Alice, ‘I like how you smell. It reminds me of Bounty bars.’ With a slow realisation, she noticed that the sounds bouncing off the work office walls were speech; then, as they entered her ears and travelled to her temporal lobes, she found out that the words were [...]
Author : Benjamin Fischer “How do I feel about this?” Tavare said, repeating Arcand’s question. The hard-faced Spaniard frowned and didn’t immediately answer. Arcand was tempted to open his mouth again, but then Pack Instructor stopped that mistake. “Arcand! Suit up, you damn mutt!” Arcand barked his response and hefted his helmet. Squat, matte black [...]
Author : Nathan Andrew Blaisdell “What you choose as your first improvement says a lot about you.” Sam said thoughtfully through a mouthful of pizza. I agreed with a nod, glanced up at the TV in the corner of the restaurant, and gave him time to swallow. “I mean, it’s a very important decision.” He [...]
Author : Glenn Blakeslee They said the best thing to do was stay at home. That way, they said, the retrovirus would have fewer chances to spread and the effects would be minimized. We made it for three days, Donna and I. We had plenty of food we’d saved for emergencies. We both worried about [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Proteus is Neptune’s second largest moon. When unmanned probes were sent to explore Proteus in 2308, the radioactive decay of uranium-238 into thorium-230 revealed that the moon was not 4.6 billion years old as expected, but was less than 20,000 years old, making it the youngest astronomical body in [...]
Author : Gavin King The edges of my vision blurred blue. I shook my head to clear the visual illusion away, but it just seemed to intensify, the padded walls of my room taking on a strange, mottled cerulean that dissipated when I looked directly at it. Was this what the doctors and scientists called [...]
Author : Adam Zabell The Einsteins aren’t allowed to pilot the ships because they’ve all got some manic desire to fix the universe. Save Gandhi, kill Hitler, vote in Florida or Minnesota or Puerto Rico, stuff like that. There’s even one who wants to kill Lincoln. For the greater good, she says, which confuses me. [...]
Author : Tim Crosby I am weeping in the burned rubble that used to be my home, in the ash that used to be my hometown. Every day I look for other survivors. I have not seen anyone else in over five weeks – and even that was just a fleeting glimpse of silhouettes in [...]
Author : Jeff McGaha John fumbled at the door, the alcohol hindering his coordination. His frustration, first directed at the keys, grew to include the lock, the door, the house and eventually Mary. His fury cresting, he pounded his fist into the door. “Mary…honey…open up. My goddamn key don’t work.” The beating of the door [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer It was a rookie mistake. It was embarrassing that someone of my history and career would do something so basically stupid. I liked working with primitives. I remember living with the Inupiaqs, sharpening arrowheads with them, cutting holes in the ice. I remember hanging out with the Aztecs, gilding [...]
Author : Q.B. Fox When we broke down, it left me with some time to kill, so I slipped into a little café near the port and bought a latte and a muffin. The breakfast rush had long gone and it was still too soon for an early lunch, so I was the only customer [...]
Author : Steve Smith, Staff Writer Kruger had given up wiping the dust off his goggles, relying instead on the shadow cast by the ridge line for direction, a shadow that was shrinking. They’d have to find a pass to the other side before the sun swung overhead, or risk boiling in their watersuits. A [...]
Author : mjcast I toss and turn trying to log on to the sleep server. By myself in my bed, my apartment, yet never alone. The endless chatter of the web constantly bombarding my consciousness with pictures, messages and update streams. I am unable to tune it out, log in and get much needed sleep. [...]
Author : A. Munck Man claims a bad joy. He has his hand on the radar. The oil, sweat sheen on his palm reacts with chemicals on the screen and reveals ships in the darkness. Man has waited a long time alone in the dark. “Stasis… two-thirds.” The new planet spun serenely below. Man woke [...]
Author : Gavin Raine A small child came up to me while I waited in the park. Came right up to me, touched my colourless hair and ran his fat little fingers over the wrinkles on my face. When he asked me what they were, I told him that old father time had carved them [...]
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer Although born of desperation, it certainly seemed to be an ideal solution. Volcanologists had concluded that a devastating eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera would occur within ten years; fifteen at the most. To make matters worse, the seismological data, the spectrographic analyzes of the volcanic gasses, and the escalating [...]
Author : Todd Hammrich The first thing to hit him upon waking was the metallic taste in his mouth. Every morning it was the same taste. It told him the machines inside his body had been working again; cleaning, scrubbing, scraping and sterilizing. It was the symbol of his life. Sterile. He got out of [...]
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer It was refreshing in a way, this whole ‘not having to talk’ thing. The blue Radocephamoeba across from me ‘listened’ patiently to the string of questions embedded in the constant flow of my pheromones and body odor. There were subtleties in our smell that we had no idea were [...]
Author : Eric L. Sofer Humanitarian, Not Vegetarian We were assembled for the yearly Meal of Thanks, and we had imported food, delicacies from Earth. Dad gets it through his job; he works for a corporation that does space exploration. About forty years back, they found this planet, Earth, and its inhabitants, Humans, and it [...]
Author : Sam Clough, Staff Writer We stole the blinkpacks from the research facilities at Ceti Alpha. Stable displacement technology, suitable for individual use. We sealed the holes in our assault armour and slapped on the packs: suddenly we could step through walls and down corridors, infiltrating past sentries and guards and turrets with ease. [...]
Author : Benjamin Fischer “I want to talk to the shaman.” Borhani’s words drew blank looks from the Lakota braves. A few raised their eyebrows and the surliest of the lot paused his cigarette long enough to spit. “The medicine man,” said Borhani. “What the hell are you talking about?” said the surly one. “Your [...]
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