by submission | Jan 6, 2013 | Story |
Author : Morrow Brady
It wasn’t unusual that Captain Boscobel wanted the Priest Hole built on his flight deck. What was unique was that he wanted it directly connected to a portal.
Portals offered instantaneous escape to a predetermined destination, but like most emerging technologies they were prone to failure. Sub-cellular collapse was the worst. It always reminded me of blood soaked Coco Pops.
“Brother, hide my Priest well!” Spat Boscobel, as his enormous shape disappeared into the Captain’s quarters, the sliding door guillotining the smoke trail of his cigar.
Priest Holes are desired mainly by Captains expecting trouble such as debts, the Law or taking a shortcut through bad space. When locked in a titanium shell adrift in cold vacuum with the bad guy opening you up like a can of sardines, escape options are a precious commodity.
Nano-crafting Priest Holes in spaceships was a silent skill set. Like the Priest Holes discretely handcrafted 900 years earlier in stately English Manors, their success hinged on nobody knowing they were there. The trick was unseeing the seen and threading space where space didn’t seem to exist.
My nano-bots got underway, guided by my design. The waffle iron finish to the Captain’s chair blurred red under bot activity. The seat and backrest disintegrated and was gradually remade to match the original. Phase one – Door – complete. The armrest touchscreen was still warm from bot activity when I activated the open sequence. Linguini thin louvres in the seat and backrest shivered open and slid aside revealing the Captain sized portal. Through the seat, the portal collar blurred bright white with writhing iridescent blue stub tentacles telling me that advanced nano-tech circuitry was under construction.
I was thumbing through the touchscreen, testing the Priest’s integration with the ship’s system when I heard the swish of the Captain’s door.
“Hah! The chair? You put it in my chair! Outstanding!” He bowled over, casting his bulbous head over the chair arm. As the white and blue cauldron of light reflected off his sensor implants and veined face, we were both momentarily transfixed by the bots finalising their commissioning.
“Do you want me to set the Portal’s destination?” I asked as I punched final commands into the seat arm touchscreen.
“No! Just finish the Priest, I’ll do the rest” He pulled his head back, launching a cigar butt into the bot pit then disappeared again. The cigar’s brown stub violently oscillated as the furious ant nest of bots swarmed to deconstruct the tightly wrapped Cuban tobacco.
Gradually the icy glow faded as the bots neared completion. Another Priest Hole complete. Another satisfied customer.
I packed my meagre toolkit while Boscobel tested the Priest. The slow strobing startup sequence ceased at the formation of a black sphere within the portal. The darkness inside solar flared through the shell like miniature fountains of night. Boscobel launched a stained wooden cigar box into the circle and we both watched mesmerised as it slowed mid-air as if sinking into quicksand. I blinked through the sandy static sounds that emanated from the Portal and then it was gone. He dead stared, momentarily communicating off ship to confirm the box made it through to it’s intended destination.
“Good work” The Captain nodded.
These were the last words I heard and as soon as the bee hive screaming in my head and the full body pinprick sensation of being remade finished, it was the first thing I remembered.
Boscobel had force portalled me and wherever I was, it was dark.
by submission | Jan 5, 2013 | Story |
Author : Derrick Paulson
“Uptown”
When Principal Wallace came back from his mid-morning meeting his secretary informed him that a student had been sent to see him; but, when he opened the door to his office, he hadn’t expect to find the sophomore girl kneeling on the carpet, her hands cupped over her knees. He had, however, expected the dress.
“What are you doing, Bella?” Principal Wallace said as he entered the room. “Get up and come have a seat.” He gestured toward one of three leather upholstered armchairs that faced his desk as he sat down himself on the other side near the windows.
The sun was warm through the panes, but the wind outside was as incessant as ever.
“Sir, I will, but look.” Bella remained on the floor. “This dress goes almost to my feet. It goes way passed my knees!” To emphasize this she grabbed some of the blue and orange floral fabric near her ankle and bunched it up in her fist.
“That’s not the point.” Principal Wallace said as he leaned back. “You know the hemline is not the issue. Bella, we’ve been over this.”
Principal Wallace caught movement outside, turned his head to see a man walking his dog. The big, shaggy, white canine moved timidly, one booted foot after another, as if it were walking on thin ice. A gust of wind came up, sending the dog’s hair flying in all directions. It reminded Principal Wallace of a picture he’d once seen of a twentieth century actress in a white dress, her skirts billowing in the blast from a subway vent.
“Bella,” Principal Wallace turned back to find the sophomore girl standing, arms folded, “you know the policy about this. You can wear jeans, you can even wear pajama pants, but you can’t wear a dress to school.”
“But this was a gift from my great grandma.”
Bella had said that on a similar occasion about a miniskirt.
“Look,” Principal Wallace eyed the time on his computer screen, “you might get away with wearing a sundress in Downtown, but not here Bella. If you don’t want me to call your dad I’m going to have to ask you to go home and change before you miss another class.”
“Fine.” Bella dropped her arms to her sides and turned to go.
“Not that way,” Principal Wallace emphasized the words as he shook his head. “Take the elevator.”
When the girl had gone, mumbling something under her breath about elevators being for babies, Principal Wallace got up and went to the windoor. Opening it up he stepped out. His anti-gravity boots hummed softly as he walked on nothing but air fifty stories above ground level. a few stories down he saw the hover-yard where some of the boys where taking advantage of a free hour to practice their 3-point dunks. Maybe tomorrow, he thought, if they were at it again he’d show them how they used to do it old school. Maybe tomorrow.
by Clint Wilson | Jan 4, 2013 | Story |
Author : Clint Wilson, Staff Writer
The other twenty-nine prisoners of Asteroid Mine 119F stood around me in a tight circle, their faces besieged by both fear and anger.
Henderson, almost sixty, yet fifteen kilos my better and as hard as the rock around us, screamed at me, spit flying.
“Why did you do it Nitro? You bastard, you’ve killed us all!” A chorus of mob agreement accompanied him.
I wiped a glob of Henderson’s spittle from my chin and growled back, “Well who here is dead then? A show of hands boys, who’s all been killed?”
For a moment the men could say nothing. They were shaken from the mighty blast for certain, some even slightly banged up, but it was true that not one prisoner had died in the successful escape from our oppressors that I had just so recently engineered.
Henderson puffed up again, “Yeah? Well Doc says we’re hurtling out of control toward Sirius!”
I stood up from the bench and faced Henderson nearly eye to eye, and with great conviction I began to save my skin. “Yes it’s true, the entire cellblock, still attached to a big piece of 119F is now tumbling away from the asteroid belt.” My voice quavered but the mob was silent for the moment so I went on. “And yes, we are in a decaying orbit that can only end when this entire prison turns into a molten lump as it succumbs to the gravity of the star.” Again there was shouting, I hurried on. “But fellas, do you know how long that will take?”
Doc looked up from the calculations on his handheld, “Actually I have it here boys. It won’t be anytime soon.”
I grew excited. “Yes! Listen to him! This orbit won’t completely decay for another two-hundred years!”
Henderson stepped back and glanced over at Doc’s handheld. “Is that right?”
I didn’t wait for Doc to answer, but instead jumped up onto the bench, adopting it as my soapbox. “Listen boys, we’re free! As free as we’re ever gonna get anyway. Think about it. The guards are all dead now,” I spat in disgust, “and good riddance to those bastards!”
Now I was greeted with noises of approval from the group. Not one of us was missing the stinging bite of their taser-whips. I was on a roll and kept going. “They’re all space debris now and there aint nobody from the colonies who’s gonna come looking for a bunch of condemned bastards like us when there’s obviously been a catastrophic mining accident at the old prison outpost!”
They were really settling down now, I could feel it. Doc looked up from his computer and said, “Actually, hat’s off to you Nitro. Your precision was genius. You managed to separate the cellblock and supply stores in tact, yet completely obliterated the guard pod, impressive indeed.”
“Ah Doc my boy, I had a lot of help from a fissure in old 119F that suited our purposes just dandy. Serves them hacks right for wanting their housing so separate from us rabble!”
Now the murmurs from the crowd were on my side. A voice rang out, “So we’re gonna be okay like this?”
I patted the ventilation system behind me. “This baby will keep things temperate for as long as we all live.” Then I pulled my final surprise from my belt. “But don’t worry fellas, I wouldn’t condemn us to an eternity without conjugal visits!”
They could all see that I held the keycard to the sexbot chamber. A cheer rose up and the mob carried me away on their shoulders chanting my name.
by submission | Jan 3, 2013 | Story |
Author : J.D. Rice
No one ever comes into manhood dreaming they’d one day go off to war. Sure, some boys sign up voluntarily, in peacetime and besides, with good notions like “defending one’s country” and “promoting democracy.” But those are just words. No one ever really goes to war of their own volition, knowing and understanding exactly the kind of hell they’re walking into. I didn’t. I got my draft papers and just went off to Nam without another word. One tour of duty was all they were asking for, and I wasn’t so unpatriotic as to let someone else go in my place. Only the cowards ran to Canada anyhow. Except now I wish I had been a coward. I guess that’s just how war changes you.
I remember a private in my platoon, thought he was going to be some kind of damn war hero. He’d volunteered. He was excited. He was a goddamned idiot.
“You just wait til we get to that open field on the northern border,” he used to say. “That’s where it’s going to happen. I’m going to be a hero, you just wait and see.”
We laughed, but we could all see that this boy was different. Every engagement, he’d go in with eyes like a child playing a game of baseball. He just looked into the jungle, smiled, and fired into the trees like he knew exactly where the enemy was hidden. Sometimes he’d get lucky. Other times he’d hit nothing but bark and leaves. In every case, that smile stayed on his face, like the war just wasn’t real to him, like it wouldn’t matter if any of us lived or died. It would have given us all the willies if the boy weren’t so likable in all other respects, idiot though he was.
Most days while we marched this private would entertain us by reciting his favorite science fiction stories, famous ones according to him, though most were unfamiliar to the rest of us. He’d talk about the flying machines that were coming down the pipeline, about the bigger and badder bombs the government was making, about space and time travel and all the rest. He’d cite authors like Crichton, Scott Card, Axelrod and Kachelries. I’d never heard of a damn one, but he talked about them like they were saints.
“Just you wait and see,” he said. “They’re going to be huge!”
We all just chuckled and thanked our stars that at least he wasn’t a damned coward.
But eventually, as it always does, the war got the best of even him. We were just off the northern border when the enemy came upon us out in the open. We were surrounded on three sides, outnumbered and outgunned. Poor boy just froze up, took a bullet right to the chest, and went down in the first five minutes. I don’t think he ever fired a single shot. After our retreat, I found him among the wounded, dying and unattended. The medics had already marked him for death.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” the boy said as I knelt beside him. “They said I would be a hero. They said the technology was flawless. I’d be him. I’d live his life. God, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Despite my desire to look away, I stayed with the private while he muttered on. War made fools of us all, and I wouldn’t shame him by leaving his side. It’s not like I had anywhere else to be.
“Infinite universes,” he said again, a small drop of blood running down his chin. “Infinite possibilities. They said it was flawless. They said…”
But he said no more. He was gone.
War is hell. Even the most confident and foolhardy among us eventually fall under its weight. If we don’t falter in life, it creeps up on us, breaking our spirits in death. That poor private’s face, which had for so long held that expression of stupid, youthful exuberance, now only showed the cold, hard reality of disappointment.
by featured writer | Jan 2, 2013 | Story |
Author : Desmond Hussey, featured writer
When the Quantum Drive was invented in 2023 the world was transformed; not all at once, mind you, but by degrees.
Initially, it was just the career explorers who ventured into the vast and unknown regions of space in their state-of-the-art Quantum shuttles on missions to map the new cosmic frontier. The intrepid cosmonauts were soon followed by wealthy thrill seekers in supped-up models of the Quantum rocket car. These bored rocket jocks quickly tired of the routine and rapidly growing congestion of the local super-highways within our Solar System and took to venturing further and further into space looking for high-octane adventure and exotic conquests. Most never returned.
Due to the effects of time dilation, it was a while before any reports came back to Earth regarding what was being discovered in the depths of the cosmos by these first pioneers. But, sure enough, within a few years news of diverse, hospitable planets and moons started trickling in, sparking an exodus that resembled a swarm of rats abandoning a sinking ship.
Earth’s population thinned out pretty fast after that. Once it was established that the galaxy was teeming with easily accessible profit opportunities, nearly every industry practically stumbled over each other in a frenzy to take advantage of them. Real Estate and mining moguls, colonial expansionists in their trans-galactic Winnebago’s, corporations, and war mongers all dropped Earth like the hollowed, profitless husk it had become. Even environmentalists and religious factions left to defend or convert new worlds. As far as all these groups were concerned, Earth was a used up commodity. But out there, beyond our solar system, the dream of an ever expanding economy still lived and everybody wanted their piece of the pie.
Well, not everybody.
Before long, only the infirm, the very old, the very young, the poor, the weak and the astrophobes were left behind, as well as those of us who simply didn’t give a damn about exporting humanity’s particular brand of schizophrenic perversion throughout the galaxy. Earth was our home and we were perfectly content to be left alone.
When Earth’s economy inevitably collapsed, nobody really cared much. We simply ceased all non-essential mining operations. We stopped producing needless and inferior commodities. We no longer endorsed land ownership; borders disappeared overnight. Politics became localized and diverse. Those of us who once went despairingly unheeded finally found a voice in our respective communities. Most of us became farmers, the rest, craftspeople and artisans. No one was a wage slave. A functioning technocracy, a byproduct of the scientific renaissance that sparked the Quantum Drive, provided ample, renewable power for our limited industries and humble requirements. War became a thing of the past. The desire to dominate and control left with all the hot-headed yahoos in their quest for greater glories. Those of us left behind found out pretty quickly how to get along with each other.
We, the inheritors of Earth realized that we had been granted a rare opportunity. With the ambitious, power-hungry, alpha personalities gone, the modest, obscure and lowly remnants of humanity were able to rebuild a relative utopia from the rusted, plastic clogged junkyard of our home world.
Thanks to the time dilation of quantum space travel it was a long, long time before anyone decided to check up on us. But yesterday we received a message from deep space. A ship was on its way. The Prodigal Child was returning. We could only hope that our brothers and sisters from the stars had learned the wisdom of humility we had so carefully cultivated here at home.
