by submission | Dec 11, 2021 | Story |
Author: Majoki
Of course there were doubters. Of course they said it couldn’t be done. But, of course, that’s how it has always been done. Blowing across the Pacific on log rafts. Clawing up Everest in tweed jackets with brittle hemp ropes. Blasting to the moon in a tin can built with slide rules.
I don’t blame the doubters. I’d been one of them myself. I mean, who in their right mind would believe you could launch yourself to Mars on a mag-lev railgun in a salvaged WWII submarine?
You’re right if that sounds batshit crazy. It is. To any regular Joe. But the dreamer who did it, who actually batshit did it, wasn’t a regular Joe. She was Jo Jo McRocket.
I kid you not.
Jo Jo McRocket. Self-named. Self proclaimed. Conqueror of Mars.
It’s still incomprehensible that Jo Jo made it to Mars. I mean, we were from the nowhere town of Pilot Rock in the nowhere vastness of eastern Oregon. When we were growing up there, and she was simply my neighbor, Josie Kerr, how could she even imagine this batshit crazy idea?
Pilot Rock is not a place that necessarily inspires a lot of dreams, except maybe getting out of our one-dog town. And I guess Jo Jo did. And became a space pilot to boot. Piloting the first manned craft to Mars. Even if it was a submarine she bought at a salvage auction and had trucked hundreds of miles inland from a navy shipyard near Seattle.
How’d she manage it? No one really knows except it took all her forty-two years to get it done. It’s hard to say when she went from dreaming to actually scheming. The building up to blasting off is easier to track.
Jo Jo had the curiosity of a scientist, the discipline of an engineer and the humor of an undertaker. Maybe the best way to convey her approach to conquering Mars is something she told me when we were in junior high and the new mag-lev superloop opened between Portland and Seattle.
“We’re never going to see something like that in Pilot Rock. Unless we slapdash it.” When I looked at her funny, she looked at me seriously. “Slap it together fast and get ready to dash to the Emergency Room.”
Jo Jo knew that to be first to Mars, to cut through all the naysaying, she’d have to be a bit bat-shit crazy. She’d have to slapdash her dream together, let it rip and pick up again and again whenever it broke.
She did. And she got broke a lot along the way, physically, emotionally, financially. But she kept slapdashing at her dream.
Only she knows how it finally came together. I can drive out the thirty miles from Pilot Rock to the ranch she bought in her twenties, and see the mag-lev railgun she secretly built over two decades. But I have no idea how she converted a WWII submarine into a vehicle capable of getting her to Mars.
NASA hasn’t said how it was possible either. Jo Jo’s conquest of Mars took them by surprise. Took the world by surprise. In private, I think the government agents and engineers investigating the launch are in awe of her. Though in public they tow the “batshit crazy Jo Jo” line.
In fact, folks don’t say “batshit crazy” anymore. They just say “that is so Jo Jo” or “you are totally Jo Jo.”
I get it. It’s hard to comprehend how she did it, or what made her think she could do it. All I’ll say is that Jo Jo McRocket had bat-shit belief.
And we will never see that again. She slapdashed her way to Mars and knew all along there was no Emergency Room for when it all broke on that cold, red planet. Because it did. She knew that. And still she went. Of course she did.
Rafting the Pacific. Scaling Everest. Blasting to the moon. Conquering Mars.
It’s all the slapdash same. All batshit crazy. Until it isn’t.
by submission | Dec 10, 2021 | Story |
Author: Jeremy Nathan Marks
When the migrant birds first arrived on this continent, they marveled at how few upright, two-legged hominids there were. They could fly for miles and spy only a few small gatherings.
They found most of the hominids in meadows and glens, grazing on high grasses whose oily seeds they plucked from billowing blades. The hominids were resourceful and moved in packs. The migrants, fascinated by these creatures, listened to their grunting, guttural language and wondered what these strange creatures could be debating.
The migrants encountered resident birds, fellow winged creatures with brighter plumage but reticent dispositions. These colorful cousins were masters of the higher elevations, dominating treetops and rock ledges. Their nests, while not as ornate as the ones to which the migrants were accustomed back home, were nevertheless sturdy and did not buckle in heavy wind and weather. But the resident birds possessed an odd habit of abandoning the ground to the hominids. They showed no interest in influencing hominid behavior.
These birds bored the migrants, who studied the hominids with fascination. They hunted for their grounds nests and studied their dietary habits. The migrants wondered whether these odd, hair-covered creatures who went everywhere on their hind legs had any aspirations or were they content to live at the mercy of the forests and meadows. Unlike their cousins in this new land, the migrants had learned agricultural arts and cultivated fruits, nuts, and berries to suit their tastes. It puzzled them that anyone, least of all a fellow flyer, would not reshape the landscape in its own image. And there was so much land….
The migrants crossed unbroken forests and soared over swaybacked mountains that slumped down into still more forests. There were wide rivers of purest blue and tributary creeks with arms resembling threads of gossamer. The forests were everywhere webbed with water; sweet water that seldom clogged with mud or silt. The migrants could hardly believe the taste of this land.
Where the forests gave way to scattered clumps of trees and increasingly wide growths of tall grass, there were again a few scattered hominids, now more plainly visible to migrant scouts who glided many hundreds of feet above. And where the hominids roamed the grasses, so did large four-legged creatures who outran the two-legged with ease. These beings, with their horns and black wool were scarcely different than some of the wild horned bellowing beasts the migrants knew at home. The only difference was these creatures were considerably larger and somehow hairier.
The grasses overtook the trees, and soon there were no trees at all. Then the grasses shortened, and the hominids disappeared. The migrants noticed that rivers were also increasingly scarce, and some of the spidery creeks that fed them dried up in the unshaded weather. But then a rainstorm would come, the creeks would flood, and the water would flow as sweet as any other river and creek they had so far tasted.
There were mountains now to rival those of home, peaks with snow on them during the summer months. And these mountains had trees and large flows of ice recalling the great glacial ranges the migrants had explored on their turf of origin. In some ways, this new land was not so radically different, and among the highest peaks, the migrants grew bored. They considered how if they had seen one mountain, they had seen them all, especially since no hominids had been spotted for hundreds of miles.
But then, as they descended from the highest peaks into lesser ones and finally into an area of salt-tasting water and shivering heat, the migrants found that this land was not like home at all. They could not eat the stones and sand granules that replaced the grass. There were no more berries and the insects they found were stinging, with claws and bristly hairs that forbade good eating.
There seemed to be no relief, only a scorching mockery. The one large lake the migrants found was undrinkable, so saturated with salt was it that it made the migrants sick. They thirsted worse after sampling its waters. In the throbbing landscape about them, they saw ghostlike beings with spikes on their heads moving through this wavering world that made large objects -impossibly large objects- seem to float in midair. The migrants could hardly believe what they were seeing, and in their surprise, they turned on one another, plucking out feathers and leaving their weaker brethren and sistren for dead on the searing flats. The shrunken flock that made it to a new line of cooling mountains was a fraction of the original party that had set out to bound and define this new land.
It was on a night of no moon that they came to the wall of cold peaks that marked a coda to the salt-encrusted landscape that had driven even the hardiest migrants nearly mad with thirst. These were frigid heights, and after an unmeasured stay in the desert, the migrants found their wings seized with cold; they plummeted to rocky ledges that were glazed with frost. Several in the party slid off into crevasses and found their bodies broken in pitch black ravines, while others were shattered by the jaggedness, the adamantine indifference of the alpine stones.
By morning, a handful of migrants remained. As the sun rose, the rocks heated and thawed, loosening the feathers, the bone and sinew of their wings. The remnant party, still helpless, watched as a hominid, clutching a long pole cast in obsidian shadow, speared each one of them into darkness.
by submission | Dec 9, 2021 | Story |
Author: Ruby Zehnder
Bobby aimed his drone– a 2.4 GHz RC Glow Up Stunt drone with LED lights, mini remote-controlled quadcopter with assisted landing– right at Uncle Jacob’s big fat head.
Jacob bent over to tie his shoelace at the last second, and the drone smacked Aunt Mindy right in the nose.
“Ouch,” she screeched and shot a look at her nephew that was cold enough to freeze helium.
Jacob smiled mockingly at the boy as he stood back up.
Aunt Mindy picked the object up. “What in the blazes is this?” she demanded, staring directly at her younger sister.
“It…it’s the drone Bill and I got Bobby for Christmas,” Susan stammered.
“It was only $29.88 at Walmart,” Bill added proudly.
“If you ask me, it’s a piece of junk,” Mindy said as she threw the toy at Bill.
Bill desperately dove to catch the toy, but he missed, and the toy hit the floor and a rotor blade fell off.
“Did you make Mom’s Lime Bavarian?” Mindy continued.
Every year since their mom’s passing, Mindy insisted her sister make their mother’s Christmas Lime Bavarian. It was a family favorite. So every year, Susan tried to replicate their mother’s holiday masterpiece. And every year, she failed.
The first year, the jello set too much, and the Bavarian was chewy. Year two, the Dream Whip wasn’t fluffy enough, and the Bavarian looked green and sickly like a ring of vomit. Year three… you get the idea.
Every holiday, Mindy and her wealthy husband, with their entitled lifestyle, would come, and Mindy would play food critic and make comparisons of Susan’s cooking to their mom’s epic feasts. Her husband, Jacob, would never eat a bite but would sit alone on the couch with a bottle of water in his hand.
After a few hours of complaining about the President, the price of gas, and the fact that the Bavarian looked a little pale and maybe, next year, her little sister might add a drop of green food color to make it more Christmassy; Mindy and her tall, dark, handsome husband prepared to leave.
Bobby came out of hiding, and Bill timidly made his way to his embattled wife, put his arms around her waist, and gave her a hug. He knew how upset that woman made her.
“Everything was great, honey,” he assured his exhausted better half.
“Did you notice that Jacob didn’t eat anything, again?” Susan complained as the couple put their coats on. “I think he’s afraid to eat here. We’re lowlifes, and he thinks my food will make him sick,” she continued in a low voice so they couldn’t hear.
“Ah, c’mon honey. Maybe Jacob has a stomach problem or a food allergy, and he doesn’t want to spend Christmas Day on the toilet. I know he’s weird and has no social skills, but let’s not be mean and judgmental, especially on Christmas Day,” Bill said soothingly.
Jacob and Mindy waved to the group, opened the door, and left.
“No, mom, you’re both wrong,” Bobby piped up. “He doesn’t eat because he is obviously a robot.”
Susan and Bill laughed, and Christmas Day was joyful once more.
Bobby sneaked to the front window and watched his Aunt and Uncle walk to their car. When they were sure that no one was watching, she pushed a hidden button on his neck.
When Jacob spotted Bobby peeking through the curtains, he waved.
“M-e-r-r-y– C-h-r-i-s-t-m-a-s,” Jacob wheezed as he transformed into a lunch pail.
by submission | Dec 8, 2021 | Story |
Author: Martin Barker
The morning sun creeps above the horizon in a sulphurous ochre sky. My spacesuit shields me from the radiation but eventually this desolate, wasted, planet will claim my bones for dust. I miss blue skies and birdsong.
Our mission to Mars was supposed to mark a new beginning for the Human race. We were to establish a community, exploit the vast underground lakes we discovered on our last mission, set up the biospheres, lay down roots. I spent three years preparing in a specially designed bunker in the Nevada Desert, learning how to survive in the most hostile of environments. Events on Earth gave our work an urgency.
The long predicted climate catastrophe was playing havoc across all continents. The droughts in Africa were driving mass emigration on an unprecedented scale. Europe had just endured the longest and coldest winter on record, with large parts of Greece, Spain and Southern Italy spending months under snow. North America suffered a third successive year of extensive wildfires and devastating hurricanes, Asia’s food crops were blighted by disease. It was estimated that half the world population no longer had access to clean water. All things considered, all of us on the Mars mission were glad to get away.
Once we had arrived on the red planet our work went extremely well. We were a team of twenty, from seven different nations, selected for our skills in construction, engineering and agriculture. Within a year, through selfless endeavour and the most cordial co-operation, we had established a fully functioning and amicable community. It was different back on Earth.
As the global climate crisis deepened the superpowers flexed their muscles. Proxy wars escalated, fuelled by food and water shortages, exacerbated by a collapse of the world economy. We followed the news with mounting horror as the first nuclear missiles were fired. China had invaded India, Europe was at war with America. My companions were keen to return to their loved ones, I was the only one reluctant to make the journey home, not having family to worry about.
Isolated and alone, I spent my days searching through the satellite channels for news, reception became ever more erratic as war escalated. I saw images of vast cities around the world being laid to waste in the nuclear holocaust, entire countries disappearing in fire and flame, of oceans dying from biological warfare and nuclear fallout. I wish I hadn’t returned. I’d come back to Earth with the others, back to Nevada, and stayed here, at the bunker, when everyone else left. I’ve heard nothing from the outside world for nearly five months, my air supply is almost exhausted.
The morning sun creeps above the horizon in a sulphurous ochre sky. My spacesuit shields me from the radiation but eventually this desolate, wasted, planet will claim my bones for dust. I miss blue skies and birdsong.
by submission | Dec 5, 2021 | Story |
Author: majoki
Arvidas stared at his radar screen trying to see the clearest path through. But the Kessler Run was Scylla and Charybdis resurrected in space. Unspeakable horror. And no way out without terrible loss.
Still, that was Arvidas’s job. His lot. To pilot the crew through knowing they were going to take hits. Maybe enough to kill them all.
Less than ten years ago, there was no Kessler Run. There were just launches. Still risky, but not ridiculously so. Rockets and satellites went up in droves to blanket the earth with connectivity and convenience. An all-encompassing orbital network: an ethernet for real.
All great. Until it wasn’t.
Until terror and sabotage and the exponential collateral damage satellite warfare produced turned low earth and geosynchronous orbital space into a hypersonic shrapnel cloud. Knives and daggers from horizon to horizon. The ablation cascade of space debris that NASA scientist Donald Kessler in the late 1970s theorized could render spaceflight from earth nearly impossible became harsh reality.
The Kessler Run. A zillion-headed metal monster circling the earth.
And Arvidas was facing it in T-minus ten minutes. He had that much time to plot any last minute changes to the launch plan. Their rocket had been hardened with additional shielding, and their flight suits were reinforced with Kevlar, but even micro particles traveling 17,000 miles an hour could do devastating damage to the ship or crew. And the odds were not good.
His co-pilot Teliva kept telling him the potential number of hits the ship would take and what that would mean for their survival. But survival mattered less to Arvidas than success.
Their ship had to get through. It had supplies for the moon base. It held all hope for humanity not being marooned on Earth for generations.
Yes, human avarice and hubris had made voyages to other worlds much more perilous. Yes, it was a self-inflicted wound. But that did not mean we couldn’t recover and move forward. That’s what this was really about. Moving forward.
To Arvidas, that was the only flight plan that mattered. One small step in front of the other. Even when mankind took giant leaps backward. It was sink or swim in this new ocean of space debris we’d created. These new monsters we had to face. Arvidas was for diving deep back in and taming the new beasts.
“Are we go?” Teliva asked at T-minus sixty seconds.
“We’ve gotta go. Even if we’re goners in sixty seconds.”
Teliva nodded. “I can tell you the odds of that…”
“Let’s just beat ‘em. The damn odds. Our damn beasts,” Arvidas cut in. “Let’s be that one in a million.” He initiated the final launch sequence.
Even gods are wary of the odds. High in orbit, Scylla and Charybdis feasted on Arvidas.
