by submission | Oct 7, 2025 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
“Sir, shouldn’t we turn about? Maybe hide in the asteroid belt?” Ensign Murphy stood to the Captain’s side, expecting an immediate order to retreat as a fleet of hostile aliens approached at maximum speed.
“Hardly, Murphy. You were brought on this mission to learn. This challenge should be a major boost in your understanding of field operations and a captain’s prerogatives in crisis.” Melosis sat back in his high-backed chair, ignoring the furtive tone in his young officer’s voice.
“But, Captain,” Murphy continued, “we have no idea what the Tsosis are capable of outside of myths and stories from unreliable sources. We’re in open space, but what if they’ve already claimed it?”
“You mean survivors, Ensign? The migrants from Lemayo called them the Tentacles. No human has ever seen one and lived, but the stories of their omnivorous consumption of other life forms is documented. Those few Lemayians were survivors…lucky victims. No, we aren’t running from this fight. They’ll be in our quadrant soon enough if we don’t send a message. Ernst, call up our inventory logs for the Everything Hold.” Melosis turned to his tactical officer for critical research.
“I have it, sir,” Ernst replied, as a flush of red from excitement rushed to fill his male Moon-based countenance.
“I must advise, Captain, that scanners indicate advanced weaponry on their armada. We wouldn’t have a chance if…”
“That’s enough, Ensign. Don’t interrupt me again. Ernst, do we have a displacement barrage package still in storage?”
“Yes, still in its original wrapping. I’m sure it’s functional.” Ernst smirked while staring at Ensign Murphy’s sudden flapping arms.
“Captain!!” Murphy’s voice rose. “You can’t be serious. That weapon is forbidden by every race, including our own. How did you get it? You can’t use it. You know what…”
“What it will do, Ensign?” Melosis interrupted. “Of course. But, they won’t. Our little secret warehouse onboard holds many surprises. Now, Ernst, is it illegal to buy such a weapon?”
“Absolutely,” replied the officer as he directed the weapon to be removed and placed for activation at the spaceship’s bow.
“Did we order it from Earth and have it shipped to us?” Melosis asked Ernst, sarcastically.
Ernst laughed. “No, sir. Two missions ago, we found an ancient Baroozian battleship adrift in the Pleiades. It was a leftover hulk from the Razonic Wars of the twenty-third century. You have the authority to remove anything from abandoned wreckage.”
“You see, Murphy, back home we had this drawer in our kitchen where my mother threw every kind of gadget and cooking tool she might use only once a year, or maybe only once ever. It was our Everything Drawer. We have one on this ship. The Tentacles were never within a parsec of that conflagration. They have never seen what a displacement tool can do. They’ll soon find themselves separating into cellular goo as their bodies forget to hold their forms together. Their fleet will be full of jelly before they can fire a single weapon. So, if I could never have such a weapon, how could I have ever used it to stop an invasion by a ruthless horde?”
Murphy stood still, wide-eyed, as he felt an unusual vibration ripple through the ship’s hull following the deployment from the ship’s Everything Drawer.
by submission | Oct 5, 2025 | Story |
Author: Ernesto Sanchez
I never thought I would ever hear my father’s voice again. Pitying my aimless life, he handed me this job decades ago, a post so simple a witless robot could do with ease.
The monotony is the most difficult part; log every disturbed visitor entering my assigned black hole. The visitors are disintegrated in short order. It’s the farewell bridge for those patient enough to travel light years merely for a poetic end. Some believe they will be transported into another dimension, but most use these coordinates as a gateway to oblivion. Blue collar miners, trillionaires, diplomats, even a former president of the United Colonies of Sol took the plunge.
Few know I can tap into their spaceship radios as they approach from my monitoring station. “It’s beautiful,” many say, before the pain and anguish of disintegration alters their perspectives. Some even manage to quote the ancient classics; Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Kafka…far too much Kafka.
His raspy voice caught me by surprise, barely recognizable after decades apart. “I’m sorry Martha, Arina,” he said softly of my mother and sister moments before the spiral would swallow him. He didn’t even remember the son he abandoned in the depth of space, seconds from the point of no return.
This is completely against protocol. Dare I? I wipe decades of dust from the microphone abandoned on the floor. “Father? It’s me. Your son. I’m watching you from the nearby moon. I love you.” His small transport ship slowed down, silent. Yet it didn’t yet turn back, a period of indecision that sent a chill into my bones. “Remember when you sent me away? I did it willingly, for you. Perhaps you will return the favor, and let me see you one more time.” For an instant, I thought he was turning around.
“Goodbye son,” the black hole whispered back, emotionless.
I watched frozen as his ship convulsed into a helix, a daily yet ever-astonishing occurrence. Every inch closer to the singularity caused a convulsing shock in my veins, a metamorphosis of inexplicable proportions. My cells were rewriting themselves, quantum-entangled with his descent, becoming someone I’d never been.
It was over soon enough. I saw myself break open the emergency glass. I saw myself press the big red button, the one you are never supposed to press. Part of me wanted to return to civilization. But another part wanted to follow right behind him.
by submission | Oct 4, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alzo David-West
swirling leagues
of double stars
and life-pulsating suns,
waving bands
and cosmic rays
and manifold planets turning,
plasma clouds
expanding in the spaces
of the void,
inter-solar orbits
in great eccentric form—
a nova blast explodes,
nuclear fission
on teeming worlds,
quanta and atoms decay;
fields of glimmering
molecules and light
fading on the horizon;
matter
makes a whisper
where once there were orbs;
scattered ice and gas,
like dust, linger
for eons that pass;
then in between
the spaces
of the desolated void,
a rift, a beam, a spark,
and the manifold planets
reforming;
quanta and atoms energize,
fields of glimmering
molecules and light,
and there arise new orbs
from the shattered fragments
of the past;
a generation of revolutions
revives the vast
galactic scene,
a stargazing anthropoid
beholds, sits, and puts its hands
on its soft bearded chin
by submission | Oct 3, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alicia Cerra Waters
I remember laying on the midwife’s cot after the world had been deep-fried by a nuclear bomb. I wasn’t feeling very optimistic. The midwife’s mouth puckered with words she didn’t want to say as she offered me some herbs. Problem is, I knew those herbs didn’t even work for the coughs and colds they were supposed to cure. Everywhere was a desert and people thought anything green was medicine. But only medicine was medicine, and only the witch doctor at the top of this mountain had it. No one living in the underground barracks had anything besides superstition. Of course, the witch doctor had her superstitions too. Her tech could cure anything, but she demanded a life debt. So I hired one of the con-artists who called themselves guides to take me to her.
“Watch your step,” the guide said. A black bandana covered his mouth to keep out the sands. When we left, he told me in no uncertain terms he thought I’d die out here. Which would be too bad. Life was the only currency I had.
The bleeding had stopped some, but the mountain to the witch’s hut was a sharp climb. Not at all ideal for my situation at nine months pregnant, yes of course my muscles ached and my breathing was ragged, but women had overcome shit-odds like these long before the world ended and I would be no exception. I worked my way around the drum of my belly and hauled myself up the sharp ridge. Above us, three more ledges jutted out. We could see the squat metal dome which buzzed with electric lights like a beacon.
“Listen,” he said, “I have some cyanide.”
I jerked my head up towards him as I hauled myself onto the ledge. “Why would I want that?”
“Girls like you from the worst part of the barracks always get screwed over. A quick death is better than bleeding out in childbirth.”
“Thanks for your concern.” A shit-eating grin split my face. Two more ledges to go.
“You’re tough. I like that. If you want, I’ll bring it back to the guy who put it in you. Where is he anyway?” His eyes narrowed on me as sweat trickled down my brow. I was pretty enough. It’s the only reason he agreed to take me.
“He’s dead,” I said. My legs throbbed like the baby would be forced into the world right here, right now. I almost lost my grip as stars closed in on my vision, but somehow I pulled myself over the second ledge. All that mattered was getting to the top.
The guide let out a low whistle. “I’m sorry I’m meeting you now that it’s the end for you.” He was about my age. Probably not bad-looking under the face covering.
“I’m not,” I said, and tossed my hip into the last ledge of rock, my arms scrambling and scraping, and kicked my way over it. He smiled under his bandana like I’d given him a complement. Ridiculous.
I laid on my side in the sand and looked at the hut, which was really a fortified storm shelter, nicer than anything back where we came from. I rose to my knees when the witch doctor opened the door.
“I’m bleeding. The baby’s coming soon,” I said.
The witch shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. Women get out of worse situations than yours all the time.”
“Wait a minute,” the guide said. “What about the life debt?”
That was when my knife opened his throat. “Paid,” I said.
by submission | Oct 2, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Maybe if we’d thought about it sooner, instead of just buying what the newscasts told us, things would have been different. But I’m not sure. I mean, Autonomous Immigration Management Systems sounded like a good thing – they’d be a non-human (read: non-emotional, non-threatening) way of quickly checking ID documents against the usual registers and permit lists. They could ensure folks were here legally, and paying their social dues. Unarmed, non-unionised, and undoxxable, and they could work 24/7/365. Even with maintenance, they’d be cheaper for the Tri-Metro Area than constantly having to recruit and train new agents, who’d then want paying at rates equivalent to the private sector. Wins all round, am I right?
And when they arrived, everything went fine! We got used to seeing their sleek blue-and-silver frames in the street, stopping at irregular intervals to ask random people for their papers. Sure, there were occasional errors, but these always turned out to be caused by sloppy MetroGov record keeping. And we didn’t worry about AIMS teams visiting workplaces, because they were faster and caused less disruption than the goons they’d replaced.
But my opinion changed a few months later. I was lunching on a vibrobench in the park downtown when the oddball wandered past. Weirdly coloured and oddly cut clothes, and a conspicuous direction finder on his wrist, gave him away as a tourist. He looked around vaguely, blinked, and smiled when he saw me. I smiled back, faintly, assuming he was about to ask me something.
Suddenly two AIMS units were beside us. “Papers, please,” said one. I flashed my ID band and it scanned the code, then looked directly at me. I knew it was doing a facial reconciliation, so I didn’t move. “Thank you, citizen,” it said.
Then it turned to the stranger. “Papers, please.” He looked confused. “He wants to see your identification,” I said, helpfully. A look of understanding crossed his face, and he dug a card-sized tablet out of a pocket. “Papers, please,” repeated the unit.
“This my passport,” said the man. “Me tourist here.”
“I need to see your MetroID please, citizen. It is mandatory.”
“Tourist,” he said, pointing at himself. “This my ID”.
“This is not a valid MetroID,” said the machine.
“Passport,” said the man.
“I need to see your MetroID please, citizen. It is mandatory.”
The man stared blankly, shrugged, clearly decided there was no point arguing with a piece of metal, and turned on his heel. As he walked away the reaction was instantaneous. The second unit sprang forward, caught the visitor by the arm, and flung him to the ground. I heard a rib break. “You are under arrest; charges: defying legitimate authority, suspected no valid identification. Stay silent.”
“What? Me do nothing!”
A metal slap across the face was his only reply. People on the path had stopped, and a couple were filming on their comms; the first AIM clicked its fingers, and suddenly none of the devices were working. “Nothing to see here, citizens. Move along. Unreasonable assembly is punishable by law.” The knots of people scattered.
They took him away, and I never saw any mention on the news. But I started to wonder – what if I’d forgotten my wristband? What if it was me on holiday, and a local unit didn’t understand what I was saying? Where would I end up – and would anyone know to look for me?
I know they’re there for our protection, but I can’t look at them the same way since. And I don’t take my meals outside any more.
