by submission | Mar 16, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Nine million boxes. Over nine million lives. We’ll never know how many were actually lost when the Stormgate Battalions came so close to taking Europe back to 1942. All we have left are fragmented tales that orbit an official story so sanitised even the mainstream media seem reluctant to touch on it.
It must be this place that’s making me maudlin. Under the Stormgate Memorial is somewhere only those with special permission may visit. Unless you break in. Which – because this place ‘only’ holds the dust of a civilisation’s worth of people – is considered such a low-risk intrusion, there isn’t any security beyond basic access control.
“Why are we looking down at a cemetery made of metal racks and little boxes?”
He glances sideways at Samantha.
“Because we’re being overpaid to do a graveyard shift.”
“Don’t you mean ‘shift in a graveyard’?”
“Used to mean the same thing, back when Earth was the only planet humanity occupied.”
“Charming. Come on, Mike. It’s cold, I’m hungry, this stealth rig makes me itch, and it’s four hours until dawn. Tell me why.”
I lean forward and let my vision follow the dizzying perspective down to where all the vertical rails seem to plunge into the coolant mist just before they converge.
“You know how many people visit here each year?”
“No.”
“Less than a fifty. Not even one a week. Officially, that is. Illegal accesses are higher, but nobody really paid attention until few months ago, when a lowlife by the name of Don Gattik entered using a fake ID so cheap it flagged itself in the access logs. After his fourth monthly visit, the Directorate petitioned the Assembly for increased monitoring here. It was denied. Same again for the fifth. So an alternative was proposed: us. Apparently there’s been rumours of malcontents gathering under the Stormgate Memorial. Before the Directorate can take action, independent monitoring is needed to ascertain the level of threat.”
“I’m guessing these malcontents meet monthly, always during a couple of days either side of the night preferred by Mister Gattik?”
“Excellent guesswork. Tomorrow night is dear Don’s sixth visit.”
“Much as I love the money, I’m bored. Hope it’s tonight.”
We settle back to wait. Unlike Don, whoever is dropping or collecting does so without trace. Which is why we’re in full-body stealth gear so they don’t spot us. Our equipment is a simple recording device and a hand-held motion detector.
Which, as if in response to my thought, shows movement coming down the rear maintenance stairs. I point. Samantha reaches out and activates the recorder, rotating it so it covers that direction.
A fashionably dressed figure comes down the stairs like they’re sauntering into a club. I recognise Dante Jeve, representative for Eurocorp at the Assembly. He moves to a nearby slot. With a practised flourish, he lifts the lid, deposits something from his pocket, and leaves the way he came.
Samantha sighs.
“Just like that. Now what?”
“You bring a copybox?”
She nods.
“Go show the drop to the recorder, then replace – after copying if possible.”
“Still stealthed up?”
“Yes. Protects us.”
She goes.
It’s a secure flash drive. Which is ideal, as the copybox doesn’t try to access anything, it just maps bit patterns for later unravelling and analysis.
It takes an hour, but I use the time to update those who need to know.
“Handover and done?”
“Yes. Breakfast is on the Directorate.”
“After I shower.”
Actually, that’s a good idea.
“Showers first, then.”
“They going to arrest everyone?”
“Eventually. But not our problem. We’re paid and out of here.”
by submission | Mar 15, 2026 | Story |
Author: Rick Tobin
“Not on my ship! Do you hear?” A giant, hairy fist struck the ship’s control console as Commander Tros rose from his chair, preparing to join the Bay of Death ceremony. His second followed behind, head bowed.
“Your Prominence, my duty is to inform, not agitate. The Alliance Board has ordered the ceremony, regardless of your great victory.” Estes Parlon kept his shaved head bent low, remembering to keep five paces behind the armada’s hero.
“Ceremonies be damned. This should be a time of joyous celebration. Have I not delivered an overwhelming victory over those Saturn scum? Is the Planetary Alliance not all-powerful again?” Crewmen slipped into doorways and alcoves as they heard the roaring anger of the ship’s superior while he and his aide marched through the narrow hallways.
“Yes, great one. Joyous tidings to you; however, it is the Board’s will that all lost in their service be honored in accordance with their tradition for final departure. McKenna’s people were from ancient Scotland, before the asteroid struck Earth. This single request before his release into the void is in accordance with Alliance protocol.”
“Useless fluff, Parlon. Useless. And what rank was this man, anyway?” They moved forward quickly, reaching the entry to the funerary portal.
“A maintenance mechanic, Prominence,” Parlon replied timidly.
“By the stars!! Not even a fleet officer? We would never on Mars. Never.”
“Sir, not all aboard agree with our annihilation policies after victory. This act of respect for a lost crewman could reduce such murmurings.”
“What? Gossiping? Who is complaining?”
“The Alliance is assessing potential risks of mutiny by those whose personal beliefs do not fully align with current military strategies of victory.”
“Do I care? Really? There are thousands of rebellious Alliance corpses still floating between Venus and Mercury. Venusian crews learned the price of revolt on board. Let fools grumble. They can join McKenna in the airlock if they don’t like our eradication of enemies. My fleet fights to win so that we never face our foes or their offspring in the future.”
The two paused a moment as they joined a silent gathering crowded into a normally busy docking bay filled with supplies and weaponry.
“Here we are, sir. If you will stand to the left of the woman in the purple robe, please.” Parlon stood back as Commander Tros moved to his appropriate position. Tros was notably two feet taller than all those gathered, his golden, hairy body reflecting the overhead lights of the shipping chamber.
A delicate, pale Earth woman of compelling beauty strode forward, slowly, toward the shiny metal casket prepared for ejection. She held her hands over the galley’s preparation of a single morsel of fresh bread lying upon the metal tube. She spoke slowly, in solemn conviction, before consuming the waiting offering.
“I give easement and rest now to thee, dear man, that ye walk not down this ship’s hallways or in its path of travel in space. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen.”
The sin eater gently consumed the artificial wheat in supplication for a final act of contrition.
by submission | Mar 14, 2026 | Story |
Author: Kip Pratt
Dear Supreme Being,
Thank you for the commission. And now, the results…
On the planet Earth, in one of your cleverer little galaxies, the bugs are all deceased. Take the car out at dusk, and the windscreen returns squeaky clean. No squashed bodies.
Diversity. That’s what they are arresting, down on that sad little planet (no offence… it was anything but sad when you magicked it up). How did we discover this? Well, let’s just say that we have an interest in little things.
It clearly concerns you, that Earth is limping along so tragically. In your grand scheme, Earth is a mere speck, and yet, could its bug deficit be a barometer of your wider waning influence? This was your anxiety, hence our little arrangement.
Our methodology? Upscaling. I give you… The Bus. Apologies; it’s a silly comic reference. Suffice to say that, in the bustle of an Earth day, a bus sports a formidable (and disturbingly clean) windscreen. Our bus, The Bus, is a hyper-drive vessel, just three point two light years wide. I invite you to picture her windscreen; a square parsec of concave plexigraphenectoplasm.
Ruminate on this transparency, Oh Great One. What do you foresee?
Let me illuminate…
We gave the pilot his orders; to fly The Bus across a smallish spiral galaxy. On his return he was grumbling about impaired visibility. Impaired visibility? My spirits rose; data. The pilot described it to us thus…
‘My colleague the science officer, looking back from whence we had come down the empty, black corridor of space, declared the experiment a resounding success.’
The science officer was not wrong. The Bus had cut its path, just a single parsec square, striking twenty-five thousand heavenly bodies, each and every one squashed, splattered, smeared, blacked out.
Well, good, frankly. Excellent even! I am delighted to be able to share my optimism about the future of your cosmos, and, I’m sure you’ll agree, given the tiny statistical sample, no serious harm done.
Is Earth a barometer of cosmic decay? Such was your question. The answer? No. Its dearth is simply a product of atmospheric tomfoolery. In the bigger picture our dirty windscreen provides evidence of your diverse and expanding works.
In short, all is well in the universe.
We thank you for your commission.
Our invoice is attached.
by submission | Mar 13, 2026 | Story |
Author: Cecilia Kae
I woke early yesterday to catch the last glimpse of the island. It took twenty minutes getting to the pier. I wanted to be there before it got crowded but it already was. Most were there because it was the first time Mantasia, our neighbouring country, could be seen up close. From where we were, we saw Mantasians standing along their shores, waving wildly.
At dawn’s light, the wording on the islanders’ banners grew clear. “Apart but never away from our heart!” The fishermen and their families waved and blew kisses. I waved back wildly. It was hard to tell who was saying goodbye to whom. I wonder what will become of them. Not much news has mentioned them.
It was a strange feeling—saying goodbye but also being in awe of this new reality. I tried to capture one last image to recall this view that would never exist again. For as long as I could remember, the island is situated at the leftmost of the pier.
I spent my sixteenth birthday there with a tent, six bottles of beer, and a pack of cigarettes that Ryan and the boys smoked secretly while Jessica and I sat beside my Bose portable speakers connected to my iPhone. It played my favourite soundtrack of all time all night—non-stop—even when the boys complained. Jessica and I just laughed. I dozed off every now and then, my head on my jacket on the granite bench, lying on my side. No matter how many times I closed my eyes and reopened them, the island was always there, in the same spot to the left of the pier.
Now it is completely out of sight, and there are only waters where it used to be.
Most of the people in my class are thrilled. I mean, who wouldn’t be? Geography is redundant now—nothing is where it used to be. We’re not the only ones floating, and we’re certainly not the first to come up with this idea. I don’t want to sound smart-alecky, but this should have been done long ago, shouldn’t it? All the time spent debating and arguing, all those summits and demonstrations on TV—no one can fight nature. The world is changing, so we should too. Even the lands we call home. They have to shift.
There is a lot to reorient and recalibrate. Mantasia, our new neighbouring country, will drift out of close proximity in weeks. There has been an agreement that they will float southward while we will float eastward, though we will still be each other’s closest neighbours. That would mean we will be further away from the equator, and I wonder how much cooler it will feel.
Grandma and Grandpa are worried. I know because they grip each other’s hands tightly whenever analysts on TV make predictions about next year’s temperature ranges. They don’t know, but I have been knitting furiously to make them sweaters and scarves. I’m excited to see the weather change. Call me young or stupid—I don’t care. I’m tired of perspiring. Change is awesome.
There will be new allies and new tensions. Tsunami warnings, flood alerts, and earthquake tremors may become less of a threat—who knows? But one thing we all know: doing nothing would lead to one very abysmal outcome.
I woke early today to catch a glimpse of our country’s new shoreline. Jessica, Ryan, and I took pictures and posted them online. I think I will wake early every day from now on.
This new reality is worth waking up for.
by submission | Mar 11, 2026 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
Lemme tell you, time and cost are serious issues if you want to meet an Offworlder. Which was a problem, because I did: Earth girls are so narrow-minded. The Solar System just doesn’t exist to them. My life partner’s gotta have a wider outlook, you get? And Terra was a drag, all politics and gloom; getting out looked good.
So when my number got picked in the lottery for Planetary Partners – the OutMigration Dating Show™, I was over the moon (ha ha). Then came the vetting: brutal, man. The discovery process had them interview my exes, and dissect all my life records for “compatibility issues”. But I’m just a regular Joe, so no red flags there.
There’s eight Colonies, and I had no idea where my match would come from. I mean if it was Selene, then Luna’s only a few days away. Cool, long weekend. Anchorpoint Station at L4? that’s a month each way. But both are real modern, not frontier towns like Marsport or Mercury Base. Then again, at least those’re on planets, right? Aphrodite Station sure sounds all romantic, but Venus is a hell of a hike just to get to another boring orbital habitat. Earth’s got plenty of those: they suck. And what if my date was a methane miner on Titan? My preference runs to brains not brawn. But I didn’t fancy an egghead from the Chalice Research Centre on Ganymede, or from the Callisto Science Hub; that would be too much. I’m smart enough, but not scientist-smart, you know?
So I was pretty wound up until the deets came in, and I got paired with ‘Mandy from Mercury’. My mates said she had to be a hot date, being that close to the sun (ha ha again). SystemNet paid for text and vid messages between us (no live chat, ten minute lag each way!), and over the next couple of months we swapped life stories, chatted about hobbies, dreams, the usual stuff. All taped and analysed for the public of course, so it wasn’t quite natural. But it was okay. I had a good feeling about where things were going.
Then came our studio exit interviews, and… we both wanted to meet for real! OMG! I spent sixty days in transit and high anxiety. I was so scared that sheets of sweat were running down my back before we landed. But excited too, know what I mean? Butterflies in my stomach, like I was a teenager again. What if she was different face to face? What if she wasn’t? Was the spark a thing, or was this a waste of time?
Anyway, that was then. Here’s a selfie of us both on our first REAL date. Notice the Messenger Monument? It’s amazing. She’s amazing. This is everything I’d hoped for. She’s told me she wants me to come here, and hell yeah, I’ll do whatever it takes. Shift dirt. Do data entry. Anything. She’s worth it.
So that’s how far I went. What about you?
by submission | Mar 10, 2026 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Everyone said the Charmers had really known what they were doing fifty thousand years ago. Trema’s quandary was that no one had ever been able to figure out what they’d really been up to.
Sure, they’d left some mage-level techno artifacts. Seemingly random space-bending portal gates far from strategic Lagrange points. Enormous comet-bots circling uninhabited star systems in orbits ranging from dozens to thousands of years. Semi-sentient organic Dyson spheres, some that shared energy freely and others that hoarded it. Quantum time crystals that suspended relativity.
Mind blowing stuff. Humbling stuff. Terrifying stuff.
So it was no surprise they were dubbed Charmers because of what Clarke once said about sufficiently advanced technology appearing as magic. They were definitely magicians compared to human understanding of astrophysics, biomechanics, and quantum engineering. And for centuries, nobody had been able to discover the Charmers’ grand plan or where they’d ended up–or just ended.
Then came the first boots-down survey of Seldon 5, a smallish moon around a gas giant in an uncolonized system. Initial reports cited a stable ecosystem with myriad forms of feral life, and one tripedal intelligence flourishing in what the lead arcologist of the survey team termed “blissed disinterest.”
That native disinterest didn’t last long and Trema and her crisis team were dispatched to Seldon 5 to investigate a sudden and alarming unresponsiveness from the survey ship’s systems and crew. Upon arrival, the whodunnit became a whatthehell because the entire survey team along with the whole triped species were nowhere to be found. They’d completely vanished.
The empty survey ship was no help, all records had been wiped. So, Trema and her crisis team scoured the small moon, searching triped habitat after habitat, hundreds of them. There wasn’t much to find. Trema’s team found no evidence of conflict or struggle or weapons. There was little to explain what’d happened.
The only thing Trema had to go on were the initial reports sent by the lead arcologist, observing that tripedal society seemed to mainly consist of subsistence farming, foraging, and joyously partaking in massive communal meals. Every habitat had large gathering areas for preparing their native fare and then dining together for days as if nothing else mattered. Far and near habitats would often come together to dine. A moveable feast on a world-wide scale.
It was a puzzle inside a riddle inside an enigma. Just how Trema liked her conundrums. And life’s great mysteries always took her back to the Charmers, which is why she didn’t miss the subtle clues and finally sussed what’d gone down on Seldon 5. She kept it to herself. Her report to the Colonial Ministry was all facts, no speculation. Nothing that would lead the top brass to the edge of the proverbial rabbit hole.
Or, in this case, the edge of an actual event horizon of a microdimensional black hole she’d found.
That techno anomaly was a fingerprint only the Charmers could have left. Trema began to see it all. Seldon 5 was theirs. The tripeds were them.
Those many thousands of years ago, the Charmers had not been wiped out by internal or external forces. They’d not succumbed to war, disease, or assimilation. They, and Trema so wanted to believe this, had abandoned their techno-magic and settled on Seldon 5 far from the madding cosmos. Severing all ties, leaving behind scores of tempting techno baubles to distract us from finding them, the Charmers renounced the reckless drive to know all, be all, own all.
Instead of eternally spreading outward and growing apart, they hid themselves to relish the simplicity and fulfillment of feasting on the one thing that really matters: togetherness. That’s what the Charmers had been doing one communal meal after another for millenia. Until the survey team showed up and it was time to move on and, once again, get away from vain sentient sprawl.
As Trema wrapped up her mission, she felt a pang of jealousy for the survey team that had gotten to go along. With all her believing heart, she wanted to join them. And maybe, just maybe, the microdimensional black hole the Charmers had left behind was their hidden invitation to those few who really knew what they were doing.
