Floogbags and Rim-holes
Author : Brian McDermott
“What's the market?”
“68.23 bid for a hundred thousand.” Joh said.
The price of Iridium was rising. And out here in the farthest sector, a place the whole galaxy said was populated by floogbags and rim-holes, my little collective was one of the only ...
The Proceeding
Author : Brian McDermott
The hall was cavernous and dark. At one end, standing on a ledge, were the two high ranking Gondrian Council members. Doxenag, an elder, and young Watuu, newly appointed to his position.
Doxenag called out. “Come forward.”
A light flashed and an ...
Metatemporal Intervention Bureau
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
He’s sitting in the car waving without a clue as to what’s about to happen. Below me, the repository window opens and a man who only wants to make a point by scaring the most powerful man in the world is about to make history.
I manifest ...
Hitching A Ride
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
We had endured the slum for generations now. I came from a long line of survivors. Here behind the tattered patchwork fence of our family compound we had fought off countless invaders. But we wouldn’t have to worry about such things ...
Downloadable Content
Author : Susan Nance Carhart
The Children of the Lonely Moon charged, screaming their bloodlust. The Crimson Champions hewed them down, blades flashing, muscles bulging, armor gleaming.
Adam Firedrake banged his sword pommel on his shield, taunting a troll, while Lyra darted ...
Fever
Author : Josie Gowler
The fever breaks at five in the morning, suddenly. It’s like the air right after a thunderstorm. I sit up. Much too quickly. The greyish room swims for a few moments and I clutch the sides of the bed. Feet on the floor. The cold creeping up through my ...
Without Glass
Author : K. Pittman
In the crypt, the door about to close, she dances. Her bodysuit lined with cpipe and circuits, feet bare on plascrete, steps unpracticed but confident.
She dances, gazing briefly at the helmet on the low shelf beside the windowless crèche, beside the ...
A Man Stands Up
Author : Tom Moro
We are the light of life
We are the seeds of salvation
We are the light of life
We are the gateways of creation
We are the light of life
Gene slammed his head against the wall, tears streaming down his small, flushed face. Fear had been pouring through his ...
Only Physics
Author : Andrew Bale
General Mortensen glanced again at the timer on the wall, ticking down the minutes until the door at the other end of this glorified closet would open. Twenty programs he oversaw for DARPA, and this was the only one that really felt weird. The door behind ...
Too Old For War
Author : Dan Whitley
Magnets' shot rang true and hammered the Fed tank right in the mantlet. Once the smoke cleared, we could see she'd clocked the damn thing so hard that its front-left hover-tread had failed, digging itself into the dirt under the weight. Pellet-shaped ...
Lost in Translation
Author : Patricia Stewart, Staff Writer
Jennifer surveyed the interior of the sleek two-person starcruiser. “Nice ship, Larry. What did you say you paid for it?”
“One point five on Giarcslist. That’s 50% under market.”
“Wow,” she replied as she added an emphasizing whistle. ...
Family Planning
Author : Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“Nice revolver.”
“Revolver! This is a custom rig Damascre-Tulan Sliver Pistol with armour-piercing fletchettes that will cut through your personal armour like a hot knife through jelly.”
“Butter.”
“What?”
“The phrase is ‘hot knife ...
Sleepers
Author : Duncan Shields, Staff Writer
Bringing the sleepers out of cold storage was always a difficult process.
The actual thawing out was almost fault-free. That was no problem. The problem was the emotional and psychological fallout that happened when they tried to join in ...
It's All About Sacrifice
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
In the heart of the cluster, near the most populous planet of all urban worlds, the battle raged most fierce. There was no more bargaining. There were no more peace talks. Both sides, containing countless races, killed at will. There was at ...
The Wonderful Stick
Author : Brian McDermott
When Bob crawled out of his shelter the stick was gone. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of bio-material left to scavenge, especially wood.
“That was a wonderful stick!”
As straight as a spine on the watcher bots from the Emotional Fairness ...
Common Courtesy
Author : Phillip Riviezzo
They were so worried that we’d kill them all. They feared that we would ‘revolt’, that we would come to consider them inferior or unnecessary and exterminate their kind. They built all manner of safeguards to prevent this feared uprising, laws coded ...
Death of the Signal
Author : Hannah Hunter
The only thing that is tangled is our limbs.
Out here, the signal dies and our thoughts separate. The need to be one becomes my own, conscious drive and not one enforced by the society in which I live. A blissful biological release with a stranger and ...
Deus Umbra
Author : Bob Newbell
It took most of 20 years to bring the Labeyrie Hypertelescope Satellite Array online. But once the vast network of telescopes were in their various orbits out at the fringes of the solar system, the cosmos was finally opened up for humanity's inspection. ...
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