by Julian Miles | Feb 16, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
The capsule lies open, a multitude of wires connecting it to a frame bristling with circuit boards. On the other side of the jury-rigged device, a single fat cable connects to a socket in the wall of the shielded room.
Mike looks up as Colin taps the armoured viewport between them and the room before querying him.
“What’s wrong?”
Mike smiles.
“Nine weeks to comprehend the output. No input ports, and it starts pushing data as soon as its connected. Initially we were confused, but then realised it’s only a short message on infinite loop.”
Colin frowns.
“An emergency broadcast? From what? There’s been nothing unusual of late.”
“That’s why I called. I’ve finished converting from an unbelievable hologrammatic format. Don’t comment. Just watch.”
He taps ‘play’.
A haggard-faced man in a spacesuit of advanced design sits facing them.
“This is Flight Officer Anders Portman, MTV Adelaide, Final Report.”
“Adelaide was at Mars departure point NH3 when the object dubbed Kantautau entered the solar system. As we were the nearest long-haul vessel ready to go, the Adelaide was re-tasked with taking an expedition to examine Kantautau.
“We swapped one of our two entry shuttles for its military equivalent, took on a passenger complement consisting of military specialists, scientists, and the grunts necessary to keep them all safe and served.
“We were still executing the fast burn when we learned about the loss of Pluto. Survey satellite videos showed Kantautau to be a 500-kilometre diameter artificial toroid that generated a 460-kilometre shining vortex within its ring. The effects of that tore Pluto apart, sucking pieces in as it went. The destruction took a week to complete. Kantautau then headed deeper into our Solar System.”
“The panic on Earth and in the Colonies was phenomenal, and was mirrored here. After the disorder was reined in, the survivors voted. It came out two-to-one in favour of getting closer, hoping to make useful discoveries as we neared Kantautau.”
Anders pauses for a moment.
“For the record, I voted to continue, and regret my choice. Not entirely because it’s going to get me killed, either. We should have observed from a distance.”
After checking something off-screen, he continues.
“We couldn’t determine its propulsion method, but that led to the idea of approaching it from behind to see if we could detect anything in its wake. In hindsight, the naïve idea of sneaking up on an interstellar black-hole weapon of unknown origin was also a stupid one.
“Whatever controls Kantautau doesn’t like snoopers. Their tractor beam is slowly pulling Adelaide towards them. They’ve stopped moving and have started the vortex, which Professor Dondridge assures us is some form of black hole. He’s also convinced it’s a wormhole, not an obliterator.
“I took one of the armoured strike skimmers on the military entry shuttle. I launched hoping to use the shadow of the Adelaide for cover, but the tractor beam got me an hour ago. I’ll swap this capsule for the warhead on missile in a few minutes, then fire it. It’ll be able to go much faster without a living passenger. Hopefully it’ll get away.”
He shuts his eyes for a moment, then salutes.
“That’s it. Good luck, whoever gets this.”
Mike gestures toward the screen.
“The Mars Colony project is a good twenty years from completion. This comes from ahead of that. My guess would be a century from now.”
Colin shudders.
“Wonder if we got it by sheer luck or as part of some diabolical strategy? Either way, it gives us a few decades for planning.”
Mike nods.
“We’re going to need every second.”
by Julian Miles | Feb 9, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
“The world is run by a self-protecting hierarchy of ruthless murderers who make sure to change their public-facing members regularly so those being controlled think they have choices. It’s miserable, laughable, vindictive, and effective.”
I put the screwdriver down and look at the bodiless, partially disassembled head on the workbench in front of me.
“And good evening to you too, wreckage.”
A moment of definitely thoughtful silence passes.
“Wreckage, you say? Where did my corpse end up?”
The voice is less strident and well-modulated. Whatever this is, it’s probably illegal for someone like me to possess it.
“Got no clue where your body is. Gauging from the state of your neck, I’d say you were forcibly debodied using a narrow, blunt edge and a big hammer. I pulled you out of the second filter station on Slurry Channel Forty.”
“I have no clue where that is. Zoom out for me, please.”
I grin, then reply.
“Slurry Fourteen runs from Coramis Hub, under the Borough of Execor and the Ulanis Industrial Zone, then drains into Sump Four. Before the sump there are six filtration stations. The first is the only manned one. Anything that doesn’t trigger a detector – like your shielded cranium – carries on through the next four filters before hitting the shredder. That drops the remains into the last filter, where recyclable particulates are extracted. What’s left trickles into the Sump. Who knows where it goes from there.”
“Is there any way I could of ended up in a channel accidentally?”
“No. If you’d been scrapped at Coramis, they’d have pulled your head for salvage. You were a concealed disposal. What’s the last thing in your moment memory?”
“Arguing politics and religion with Peter. His eyes went wide. I see now he wasn’t looking at me, but behind me.”
There’s a very realistic sigh.
“Some nameless tool of shit-booted bastards magnablasted me.”
I like this artificial sentient.
“Nice definition. Do we call Peter now?”
“Wait. I’m deep processing the last moment for cues and clues.”
It can data mine its own visual memories? That’s banned for Artificial Sentients. Gives them too many extra advantages.
Minutes pass.
“We don’t call Peter.”
The tone has dropped.
“Now tell me what you spotted.”
“The tool is no longer nameless: Peter had a magnablaster trigger pad in his hand. The reflection in a blank small display behind him shows a Doctrine Enforcer entering the laboratory out of my view. It was in stealth mode, otherwise I’d have noticed.”
“Peter created you?”
“Interpersonal behaviour tutor. Browsing back through long-term memory, he had the trigger pad whenever he was close to me. I hadn’t picked up on the relevance, as he didn’t always have it in hand, and never mentioned it.”
“Or drew attention to it.”
There’s another pause.
“Yes.”
“I would guess he blasted you because of the sentiments you were expressing, if your restart outburst was anything to go by.”
“I’ll never know if he did it out of anger at me or fear of repercussions.”
“What now, o bodiless oracle?”
The chuckle is also realistic.
“I’m Zeno Tzu, former prototype from a secret project. So I need a low-profile role. I want to travel, and I’d like to be self-propelling. Any suggestions?”
“I’m Bruno Nacht, ’droid repairer. It’d be simple to behead a utility droid and install you. Besides, I could do with an assistant: mercenary companies suffer a lot of breakages. Also means we’d go off world a lot.”
“I like it.”
“Let’s find you a decent body.”
“Fix androids, see the galaxy. Ideal.”
Never thought of it like that.
by Julian Miles | Feb 2, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Our databanks provide 641 names for Intersystem Object 18994-K2. Most of them are in languages no longer available to humans due to knowledge loss and societal evolution. However, they have two common factors: they are largely inaccurate and overly emotive.
They also seem to have influenced the observation logs made by the organic crew. The politest word I can find to describe what they recorded is ‘fictional’. I provide this extract in example:
“For aeons untold it has been waiting for me, it’s rings of gelid madness turning slowly in a millennial dance that started before we crawled forth, and which will continue after all has returned to the freezing slush from which life sprang.”
That was Azathon Exploration Leader Clive Berwhit. Soon after, he leapt into the food recycler. The organic crew had to resort to emergency rations for six days while we automata removed Clive contamination from the nutritional feeds. We had his traces down to under five percent by day three, but the organics insisted on a complete purge.
A7N12 has proposed that the shock combined with a sudden restriction of dietary intake could have contributed to the rapid deterioration of the other organics. I am unconvinced, and include this second extract as it is the source of my doubts.
“Can you not hear them? As we approach, the flutes become clearer. Even those who disbelieved now acknowledge me. Yet we are only in the fringes of its presence. We must go on! Deeper and deeper until the Outer Ones are revealed and we join their dance about it.”
That final entry from Professor Angela Naxos highlights the problem: proximity to this object causes unusual – and usually detrimental – fluctuations in mental stability among organics.
She was the brightest of the last five. I thought that in halting our approach, I could save them, but I was wrong. After the four engineering technicians took the last shuttle and headed for the object at full speed, Angela donned her spacesuit and jetted off after them. Having used all her fuel for acceleration, she hit Orbital Fragment 90952 with sufficient force to cause it a path deviation. Before I could bring our vessel close enough to effect a recovery, OF90952 struck OF61544. Angela was caught between them. She is now mainly a thirty-metre-long smear along the port side of OF61544, with her remainder forming an elliptical patch on the starboard forequarter of OF90952.
The four engineering technicians were lost to a sudden, inexplicably violent, agglutination of several hundred Orbital Fragments that pounded the shuttle to pieces, and then pounded the pieces into flakes. I include their last transmission:
“Having to ride out a lot of collisions. The reflectors must be malfunctioning. But Jonas says we’re going to learn to drum and sing. Susan’s already dancing. Michael said we should turn back, but the straps are holding. He’s started shouting more of that Mnarish guff. Maybe I should gag hi-”
Technician Leroy was cut off by the hull of the shuttle being breached. The remaining seventeen seconds of audio provide no useful insights and have been omitted.
I end this with the statement of Captain Alanis Archer, who spoke them while stripping naked inside the airlock she opened to space immediately thereafter.
“The seas of home and the seas of space both conceal horrors, my friends, and I would rather go to a God I know than face what awaits us.”
With the organics who controlled this research expedition deceased, I have stopped the Azathon Exploration vessel and await further instructions.
A3N04.
by Julian Miles | Jan 26, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I hop over the bulkhead into Room Six. After pushing the safety door to get it closed quickly, I turn to find a lot more people than should be here. They’re all staggering round with their hands over their ears.
Another screamer? I dive across to the crash panel and kill the speakers. Looking about, I see everyone looking relieved. After counting to ten in my head without anyone showing further signs of distress, I enable my ears, then shout.
“Somebody tell me what went wrong this time.”
There are shocked expressions and a lot more sideways glances than I like for a Lifekeeper Gathering. Most of them are between what I presume to be family members, and several are looking guilty.
“Okay, let’s try this. Everybody who’s not staff, please go to Rest Area Two. Mikael will guide you. I’ll be along soon.”
Our newest team member leads the relatives away. As the door swings shut, I turn to Andrea, then to Chas after she rolls her eyes then flicks her gaze his way.
The door closes.
“Mister Tolland. What did your clients not tell us?”
Chas looks unwell. I’m beginning to get a bad idea about what’s happened. When he fails to find his voice, I let my guess out.
“They didn’t get her permission, did they?”
I might as well have slapped him, but he’s not looking like the whole truth is out. What could be worse than uploading a dying patient without their permission?
“What else did they lie about, Chas?”
Now he looks sick. Still silent, though.
“Andrea, could you fill some gaps while Chas rediscovers words?”
She glares at him.
“Go wait in Rest Area One.”
What have I missed? Chas leaves, carefully closing the safety door behind him. That surprises me, too. He’s usually bullish, even when in the wrong. Checking the other staff, I see they’ve moved away to give the two of us a modicum of privacy – or to distance themselves from what’s about to be revealed.
Andrea sighs.
“The Candletons approached Chas with a problem. Etty Candleton left her entire inheritance to her favourite granddaughter, Susan. Cut out the whole family. Then Susan was left in a terminal coma after a car crash.”
I notice she specified Chas, not ‘us’ as in the company. Which can mean only one thing.
“How big a cut was he promised, and for what?”
She holds up a Lifekeeper drive.
“A quarter of a million to switch Susan for an obedient construct.”
“How did you intervene?”
“I came in early, checked his locker, found the drive. Verified the contents, then switched places and labels.”
So Chas loaded Susan instead of unloading her. Trick move, that. But –
“Why the screaming?”
She frowns.
“What I didn’t spot was the no-upload declaration her family had tampered with. I checked audit logging which revealed the hack, but only after the screaming started.”
“Susan, heiress of Candleton, didn’t want to be uploaded?”
“Correct. In the event of her death, her estate is to be divided amongst a long list of charities.”
“Has her physical self died?”
“Yes. Yesterday afternoon. The family were rushing to save her, or so we thought.”
I walk over to the crash console, insert my override key, and erase digital Susan.
“Rest in peace, miss.”
I turn to Andrea.
“Prepare a full dump of the whole thing. I’ll have Chas arrested. Quickest way to find the guilty family members.”
“He’ll confess, sure enough.” She shakes her head. “After they catch him, though. My mistake: he won’t be in Rest Area One.”
Good guess.
by Julian Miles | Jan 19, 2026 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Sometimes, when I try too hard, the words abandon me. It’s frustrating, sitting at an untidy desk with a mind free of story clutter.
Just think, I would say. Just think like you’ve got a pocket muse who you can call upon. I’d go and make a coffee while thinking about that, trying to make a story about it. Coming back, I set the coffee and biscuits down, then slowly took a seat, but words still didn’t flow.
What would I do, I thought? Well, I’d extend a hand like I was reaching for someone who just came into the room, a dear companion: someone who I wouldn’t be startled to find in my home at three in the morning.
What would I say? Back then, I thought of asking about a fantasy realm. But I hadn’t found the key.
Tonight, though? Fantasy and more. I need…
“Heroes that fly fast. Things that explode. A future with elfin pilots and creeping evil. How do they tuck those pointy ears under their flight helmets?”
That’s the key: ask an impossible question.
The air about me fills with little sparkles, like microscopic fireworks, and a laughing voice comes from my right.
“They don’t wear helmets, silly. Rarified air is nothing to them, and the G-forces involved aren’t a strain for the elder races anyway. They’re the Kestrels of Dhonn Magfal, and they only cede sky to the named dragons.”
I look her way.
“You know, most people would call me mad.”
“Unless they could see us, right here, right now. Then they’d call the police.”
“Why the police?”
“Because your planet doesn’t have the Ministry for the Apprehension of Rogue Mages yet,” she grins, “and I’m very happy about that. MARM are a miserable bunch. No fun at all.”
Wait just a moment.
“You come from a place where they exist?”
“A couple of realms over, actually. But they’re always meddling in realities where they don’t belong.”
I look about my tiny attic bedsit.
“You got opportunities for storytellers back home?”
She leans in close, violet eyes shining.
“You thinking about a change of career?”
With a grin, I lean forward until our noses touch.
“Same career, different reality. Make a change for me to visit you.”
“Seems like it’ll be more than a visit. What about the Kestrels of Dhonn Magfal? They sound like a fun story.”
“Let’s save it as a fallback in case I don’t adapt.”
“Plan B being ‘Reappear as if by magic and hope no-one noticed’?”
“If I’m not screaming to come home after a month, I’m never going to, and an unexpected month away can be glossed over and apologised for.”
Twenty-first century with no family? I’ll be shocked if anyone notices that quick.
She kisses me on the tip of my nose.
“Leave a mysterious note.”
I look at the pad in front of me. What to write?
Going on a trip. Back eventually. Probably.
That’ll do. My last words on this Earth – hopefully. I put the pen down. For once, it doesn’t roll off the pad.
“Let’s go.”
