by submission | Sep 7, 2015 | Story |
Author : Travis Gregg
Ryan took one last look around the greenhouse. The expansive row after row of flourishing plants had been his home away from home for years. He knew every inch of the space, from the greywater feed lines to the UV lighting panels. There were kilometers of trays and he’d had his hands deep in every one of them, churning the soil, making sure the seeds were sprouting correctly, and working in the nutrient tabs. He was going to miss the place terribly.
Years ago when he’d first gotten the greenhouse assignment he’d balked. After graduating from primary, part of the ceremony of finally becoming a full member of the station was receiving your assignment from the overseers. This was the thing you’d be as an adult and the contribution you’d make to the greater whole. Several of his friends got assigned to engineering and one even qualified for operations. Some of his other friends had gotten stuck with maintenance but even that had seemed more interesting than watching plants grow all day. His parents could see his disappointment but it would have been childish to pout and unthinkable not to follow the role he was ostensibly best suited.
As he got older and learned more about the station, he realized just how important the greenhouse was. In addition to providing supplemental food, it acted as an ancillary oxygen system, and provided nutrient recycling. Probably the most important function of the greenhouse, in Ryan’s mind at least, was that it reminded people of what they’d left behind. The space station was huge, holding nearly a hundred thousand people. It was cold and stark, built for efficiency and reliability. The bulkheads and passage ways were grays and whites, harsh and utilitarian. When the necessity of the stations became evident, stations like the one Ryan lived on were built as quickly and efficiently as possible, and this was reflected in every aspect of the station. The greenhouse was the one exception with its warm air and fecund aroma. Ryan encouraged everyone he knew to visit the greenhouse and often made small gifts of plants for people to keep in their quarters. In his mind, the greenhouse was the essence of what they’d had to leave behind.
As Ryan grew into the role, the greenhouse had flourished. Whether it was just luck or the overseers had a way of knowing, the greenhouse was exactly where he needed to be. He was going to be sad to leave it behind and there was still so much work to do. Just that morning he’d managed to work out the nutrient deficiency issue that had plagued the radishes for months.
As when he was young, the overseers again had called on him to put aside what he wanted for the good of the station.
Hundreds of years ago humanity had fled to the stations orbiting the planet. The pollution and radiation had become too much to fix and so humanity had packed up, giving the planet time to renew, the pollution to dissipate, and the radiation to subside. Every few months probes charted the progress and finally the radiation had dropped to reasonable levels, at least around the poles. What was now needed was for humans to once again go down to the planet and restart the terraforming in earnest. Only so much could be done with the probes and it was time for humanity to come home.
Ryan knew he’d never see the station again; this was a one way trip. He didn’t mind though, if anyone could get life going back ground side it was him.
by submission | Sep 6, 2015 | Story |
Author : Rick Tobin
Clear crystal ramparts allowed olive sky radiance to cover his skin laid bare to her tentacles. Ritual torture or not, it compelled. Her siren songs rattled the open room making walls whisper back, back over Jack Strendon’s tortured sinews, rattling beyond his screams. The alien’s sojourn through his agony was transported telepathically to all two-leggeds originating from Earth. After a blue planet’s challenge warrior fell defeated in single combat, the Altairans could continue mastery of the helpless world without restriction for another decade. An entire race was forced to sense the captured warrior’s violation and ecstasy as punishment for daring to confront its conquerors. Strendon was the fifth combatant excoriated, layer by layer of skin, while the pleasure monger drove his manhood to rapture against his will.
Gurgling rose from turgid folds of scale and flesh hovering over Strendon’s face. Mosha, the Queen of Altair Prime, left his larynx and eyes free, unharmed, so the sight of his flailing was visible, projected on the ceiling above the long table where magnetic ties bound him to metal plates. With his eyelids removed, there was no escape from observing his own filleting.
Her meanings invaded his burning consciousness. “You are old, tough and hardly worth my efforts. I am only to your third layer. No contender before you has gone beyond four. It will end soon in a glorious orgasm with rushing blood spewing into me from every capillary.”
Doctor Clemson held onto Strendon’s hand as injectors descended to penetrate his tissues. “You can change your mind, Jack, but once we install the virus in the fatty tissue there is no going back. You won’t be able to stay here, even among your own kind.” Clemson scanned the monitors for pulse and blood pressure. High, but acceptable, considering.
“Go, Doc. I’ve waited a lifetime for this. If it works, Altair is finished. They’ve scanned every warrior before. We’ve never succeeded in releasing a weapon. If I can hold out until they get to the adipose tissue, we have a chance. Just do it.”
Spittle kept Strendon from screaming aloud as Mosha slavered, probing deeper with sandpaper appendages ripping away each stratum of his trembling frame. The shredding continued, as he began to bleed out. Post hypnotic suggestions barely kept him conscious. Humans trembled through the galaxy as all with human DNA felt his entrapment of pain and death.
“Surprised me, old one. Like no other, you. Now to the lowest level and still you survive. I will honor your name with…” Mosha stopped. She flailed her mountain of slimy limbs uncontrollably against the crystal cell. All of Earth felt her excruciating shock and fear as her own skin dissolved into puddles of glistening goo, spontaneously drying to microscopic spores that spread far and wide from the containment.
Soon whistling winds of Altair Prime spread glistening virus through olive skies, making octopi armies helpless to defend the approaching Earth fleet. Phillip Strendon led the final attack, releasing Boson particle bombs into the heart of the Altairan system. As the blue star retracted inward, it drew Dark Matter into a solid, ever condensing core, crushing the empire into a singularity. Once a powerful blue empire enslaved thousands of worlds, but now merely filled a black pimple in an empty quadrant.
Phillip would carry the honor of that day, and of his father’s sacrifice, with the final title Phillip Strendon Citizenare, as beings thousands of light years apart hailed the Strendon victory over their brutal tyrants.
by submission | Sep 5, 2015 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
The ship sprang into existence at the edge of the Groombridge 34 A system. The vessel’s matter wave attenuator drive, having allowed the vehicle to quantum tunnel across 127 light-years of space, slowly powered down with an audible drop in pitch throughout the ship. The starship’s two occupants were not quite organism, not quite machine. Nor could such quaint notions as sex or race be applicable to them. The twin red dwarf stars that comprised the Groombridge system painted the cockpit crimson.
“Why the detour?” asked the one called Betlu.
“We have to transmit a message,” replied Ebbud.
“A message to whom?”
“Have you ever heard of a ship called the Artemis?”
“No.”
“It was the first manned ship to attempt faster-than-light travel.”
Betlu frowned. “What has an ancient ship to do with your cryptic message?”
“It is to the Artemis our message will be directed.”
Betlu’s frown deepened.
“The Artemis was the first attempt to send a vessel with a crew from the Sol system to Proxima Centauri. It was launched in 2377,” explained Ebbud.
“Launched when?” asked Betlu. Ebbud restated the date using the standard galactic calendar.
“That’s preposterous!” exclaimed Betlu. “Why that was 7,200 standard years ago!”
“Yes, it was,” said Ebbud. “Shortly after the Artemis was launched, an error in the calculations programmed into the ship’s primitive FTL drive was discovered. It never emerged near Proxima Centauri. The miscalculation caused it to remain in hyperspace, emerging into realspace for only a second every 2,400 years.”
“But our ancestors weren’t immortal as we are,” protested Betlu. “The crew would be long dead.”
“They employed a crude hyperspatial warp drive,” said Ebbud. “From the crew’s perspective, no time would pass while they were in hyperspace. The vessel has sailed the galactic sea like a modern-day Flying Dutchman.”
Betlu did not recognize the antique reference but from context comprehended Ebbud’s meaning.
“A ship has been tasked with trying to contact the Artemis every time it has momentarily emerged from hyperspace,” continued Ebbud. “Calculations show the vessel will emerge from hyperspace here in a few moments. We must be ready to transmit our message.”
“What message will we send?”
“The word ‘of’.”
“‘Of’? Just one word? And what does that even mean?”
“It’s from an ancient language used by our ancestors called English. It’s a preposition. Twenty-four hundred years ago another ship encountered the Artemis and transmitted the word ‘out’. And 2,400 years before that still another vessel sent the word ‘drop’.”
“Drop out of,” said Betlu. The ancient words told him nothing.
“And in another 2,400 years a vessel will intercept the Artemis when she emerges in the Oort Cloud surrounding Gliese 777. That vessel will send the word ‘warp’. From the point of view of the Artermis’ crew, just a second after their attempted jump to Proxima Centauri, they will have received a message saying ‘Drop out of warp’. Depending on how quickly they respond to this message, ships will be positioned at various locations in the galaxy at various times that the Artemis might emerge. It may yet take many millennia.
“All this time and effort,” said Betlu, “for a group of barely intelligent primitives who tried to set out for the stars before they were ready?”
“All this time and effort for pioneers,” Ebbud corrected, “without whom we would not now enjoy the benefits of galactic civilization.”
Just then, another vessel appeared, ancient and ghostly. Ebbud and Betlu’s ship transmitted its monosyllabic message just before the other spacecraft faded into nothingness.
by submission | Sep 4, 2015 | Story |
Author : S T Xavier
“Peter! I’m taking the kids out to dinner! Remember our meeting with the school in the morning!”
The yelling of his wife snaps him from his mindset, and he grimaces. With a sigh, he turns to the staircase and yells back, “Thank you, Marsha! I promise to come to bed at a decent hour!”
He turns back to the board and looks over the numbers again, but has completely lost his place. With a shake of his head, he turns his attention to the circuitry, giving it one last once-over. As he does, the basement light flickers once, then goes out, plunging his workshop into darkness.
Peter chuckles a wry chuckle as he stumbles through the darkness toward the flashlight on a shelf. Of course the light would burn out right before I’m ready to flip the switch, he thinks with a crooked grin.
Two steps away from the shelf, his foot catches on a stray cable. As he falls forward, he thinks it must be the cable connecting the doorway to the control panel. That’s the only cable running across the room. Sticking his hands out to catch himself, he reasons that he might need to cover it with something so he doesn’t trip over it again.
In the total darkness, he’s surprised when his hands collide with switches and knobs instead of the concrete basement floor. The feel of the control panel is immediately recognizable, but he’s surprised for a second that he was falling this way. He hits the control panel hard, grabbing it to steady himself from his fall.
As Peter hopes he didn’t mess anything up too badly, his thoughts are drowned out by a hum of power. He scrambles to collect himself as he realizes he must have flipped the switch! But, all of the settings, he thinks as he moves his hands over the darkness-shrouded control panel. The settings are all wrong! What have I done!?
A single flash from the doorway behind him illuminates the room briefly, then plunges it back into darkness. He looks at the control panel as his eyes adjust, waiting until he’s able to see it clearly to check the settings. A blue glow slowly settles over the controls, and he focuses on noting the changed settings.
It’s a full minute before he realizes the blue glow isn’t from his eyes adjusting, but from the doorway behind him. He stands slowly and turns, bit by bit, until he’s facing the doorway, which is now surrounded by a blue glow.
Looking at the doorway is like looking into a mirror. The basement on the other side, covered in the same blue glow, is exactly the same. The cable he tripped over is lying across the floor in the same place on both sides. The control panel is the same distance away. The person standing in front of the control panel is wearing the same rumpled red shirt and gray sweat pants as he is. The dirty brown socks and messy black hair are also the same. As he reaches up to remove his glasses, the person in the doorway also reaches up to remove hers.
And that stuns him into motionlessness, as it does to the woman who looks just like him on the other side. He works his mouth to say something, as does the woman. Finally, he’s able to speak, and the words come out of both mouths simultaneously. “Holy crap. You’re me. But, you’re not me!”
“You’re a woman!” he finishes his statement with.
“You’re a man!” she finishes her statement with.
They stare at each other for a few more seconds, then step forward and reach their right hands to each other. Both hands pass through the doorway to the other side before they realize they missed a handshake. Both shrug as they instead clasp wrists and shake up and down once.
Looking in each other’s eyes, they smile, then shake their heads in wonder. “Marsha’s never going to believe this.” They both say, to each other’s surprise.
by submission | Sep 3, 2015 | Story |
Author : Selso Sam Zaghloul
Cherry woke up at three o’clock local time, sweating and panting. She turned and looked out the window as the light from the smaller moon dripped into the room.
She had the dream again. The same dream she had nearly every night since the colony group had plopped their dull-gray prefab houses on this world. A dream of music, of an unearthly song bigger than everything, and of a light that would consume the heavens.
She trudged out of bed, dragging herself to the sink. She splashed ice cold water onto her face, as if trying to wash out the vision from here mind. It didn’t work. She could still hear the song echoing in here head, and the light dance before here whenever she blinked. She sighed. Cherry wished she had someone to talk to. But the other colonist lived in a compound about ten minutes away; a home to herself was supposedly Cherry’s reward for her work on the soil survey.
But the truth hung there, unspoken. They wanted Cherry and her dreams of heavenly music and all-embracing light as far away as possible, as if she was a useful, but dangerous animal. And maybe they were right to do so, she wondered in despair, maybe she was a ticking time bomb, waiting to go off.
Then she heard it. The same music from her dreams rose faintly into her ears. Cherry listened, at first in fear (this was it, she thought I’ve had finally lost my mind) and then in longing, greater longing than anything she had wanted in her entire life, until she could stand it no longer and ran out into the night, the melody pulling on her soul like a fishing line .
She didn’t care that it was the middle of the night, or that the song emanated from the untamed forest, or even that she was as naked as a newborn. The music made its siren’s call, and Cherry would answer, no matter what.
As she dashed through the spiral pines she nearly ran into pack of gecko-wolves, one the planet’s most vicious predator, who could strip a man to bone in seconds. She barely noticed them as they parted before her as if they were bowing before some sort of holy woman.
She exited the forest near seaside cliff. The Song was coming beneath her, from within the earth. She got on her knees and began to claw at the ground like a dog searching for the last bone in the universe. Hours later, she hit something.
The music stopped.
She had uncovered a black metal surface, barely visible in the light of the second moon. Cherry held her breath, and slowly reached for it with here index finger, trembling in both fear and excitement. The second she touched the metal’s cool surface, veins of light appeared on it, spreading quickly. The structure, a sphere the size of Cherry’s head, bursts out of the ground, knocking her on her ass, and floated over the clam sea.
The sphere disassembled itself into five pieces, like a puzzle in reverse. The floating pieces were still connected by the light, and from that light emerged five new structures, rectangles this time, and they too disassembled, and reattached themselves to the ends of the sphere-pieces. The process repeated-metal structures would come forth from the light, take themselves apart and attach the new individual parts to the ever expanding super-structure that had begun with the sphere.
By the time the larger moon rose, Cherry was no longer sitting before open space.
She was standing before a city.
