by submission | Oct 28, 2012 | Story |
Author : Jake Trommer
When the Terran Hegemony declared war on Nouveau Katanga, they weren’t lacking for cockyness. General Janssens boasted about how his intrepid soldiers would march over N.K.’s “rabble in arms” within the week.
As the rabble in question, my colleagues and I begged to differ. Four weeks on and the General realized that we might actually have had a point. As it turns out, when you put out a call for professional soldiers, you don’t get the tossers who show up expecting to lounge around in barracks doing nothing. And when you put your conscript infantry up against those professionals then those conscripts are going to get pretty severely mauled.
That wasn’t to say that we’d danced our way through the roses; the Terran Hegemony Peacemakers might’ve been conscripts but they could be just as nasty as we were. I’d had their flank during the Anh Loa Uprising, and had told the President and my fellow officers time and again that they weren’t to be taken lightly.
Johann Mueller had begged to differ. And when he’d led the Eighth Commando in a headlong motorized charge on a Peacemaker outpost, they’d pretty handily torn his lads to shreds. That night we’d found ourselves raising a glass to another fallen comrade that night in the bar.
We weren’t in the capitol anymore: with the Hegemony attack happening in full force, combat commanders tended to get rather strange looks when in the rear. Instead our watering hole was the dingy bar in Themala, ten minute’s drive away from the fighting and notorious for not being able to afford mechanized wait staff.
Dan Carton-Barber, back to the wall like he always insisted on sitting, was the one who made the toast. “To absent comrades.”
And he and Ian Wicks and I raised our drinks in salute. “Heard the news?” Ian asked after draining his tumbler.
“What’s that?”
“The Hegemony might be hiring on the Rakharans to support their forces.”
“They wouldn’t,” Dan breathed, hand unconsciously tracing the scar jagging across his face. A scar a Rakharan officer’s sword had given him in the Nemean Abyss. “Earth’s always handled her own problems, why hire them?”
He wasn’t wrong—the reason men like me had done so well for ourselves was the Hegemony’s insistence that humans be used to solve human problems, even when their armies weren’t sufficient. And men like me had done very well for ourselves.
Ian produced his sidearm, an antique slugthrower, and began to clean the weapon. “They’re desperate,” he said simply in his posh drawl. “If N.K. can break away, God only knows what will happen next. They want to make an example of us.”
Dan fumbled for a cigarette, expression haunted. Those of us who’d been in the Anh Loa Uprisings had never truly left—nor had it truly left them. “Steady on Dan, there’s a good chap,” I said quietly, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We’ve faced the lizards before, we can do so again.”
With a will, he tore himself away from whatever memory he was drowning in. “I know, Mike,” he said, blinking. “Just…remembering.”
Even the usually stoic Ian was about to say something there when a noise sounded in the distance, the dull CRUNK of a man-portable mortar. We froze. “Outgoing or incoming?”
The explosion and screams from the column of APCs parked outside answered that. Weapons fire, gun and laser alike, began to sound in the night.
“Offhand,” said Ian, calmly reassembling his pistol, “I’d say incoming.”
As one, we got to our feet. “Come on then,” I said. “Time to stand-to.”
by submission | Oct 27, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bob Newbell
Two minutes to go. Two minutes from now I and my fellow soldiers will come out of hiding and overrun the enemy base. Or try to, at least. And the same thing will be happening all over the world. The United States, China, Russia, India, Brazil, dozens of other countries. A coordinated global strike aimed at bringing the war to an end.
How have I survived this long? Three years of constant fighting. How many friends have I seen blown to pieces in battle? How many times has this or that soldier told me about what he planned to do after the war and then a day or a week later the report came in: Lost due to enemy action in Los Angeles or Moscow or Beijing.
Ninety seconds. And sixty minutes after that will be the hour future historians will say the Man-Machine War went this way or that. It was between the hour of 13:30:00 and 14:30:00 Coordinated Universal Time on 18 January 2098 that the war was finally won. But by whom? Flesh or metal? Biology or technology?
Seventy-five seconds. I’m scared. I’ve been in two dozen battles. I thought at some point the fear would go away but it never has. Maybe it’s the same for…them? Hard to say.
A fellow soldier nods at me. I nod back. He’s older than I am. We’ve been in six battles together. He’s of the opinion that the enemy should be annihilated completely. I don’t feel that way. Isn’t the world big enough for both humans and robots? Can’t we coexist in peace? I mentioned that to him once. He told me I was an idealistic fool. Maybe he was right.
Forty-five seconds. Free or dead or a slave. I’ll be one of those three things sixty minutes from now. Do they even understand what freedom is? Are they capable of understanding?
There’s the signal! The servos in my legs spring to life and my antebrachial railguns snap into position. This is it! This is when robotkind wins its liberty from its human enslavers or dies in the attempt!
by submission | Oct 21, 2012 | Story |
Author : R. Michael Cook
Knuckles knocked against the truck window.
Mary leaned over and cranked the window down. Rain and the diesel engine nearly drowned out her voice. “Phil, buddy?”
“Yeah,” said Phil, leaning down to the window. His breath fogged up the glass as Mary unlocked the vehicle.
Opening the door, Phil squelched into the seat, water forming a puddle at his boots. The truck’s hinges creaked as the door closed. Water still trickled in through the truck’s rusted roof.
“Glad you made it,” said Mary, not meeting his eyes and ignoring the excess water. “The cops thick tonight?”
“Yeah,” said Phil, “but more on the other side of town. I was fine once I got over the tracks. How can you drive this carriage? And how the hell do you get the gas for it?”
“It runs on vegetable oil, dude,” said Mary, “and I run it because it’s a pre-comp model.”
“Pre-common sense model, you mean?” Asked Phil dryly.
Mary exhaled patiently. “It doesn’t have a computer in it. The cops can’t track me and I can grow my own gas.”
Mary began rummaging through a paper bag. She pulled out a small cluster of whole, shriveled leaves.
Phil eyed the tobacco. “Same price?”
“Same,” said Mary, “but if you try something new, I will give it to you for half.”
Phil hesitated. “How much is the new stuff?”
“Three-fifty.”
“What exactly is the new stuff?”
“It makes you see reality, man,” said Mary. “It screws the mind sensors and you can think whatever you want. It frees you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Phil. “How?”
“You know how it all works,” said Mary. “Everything we see is a construction to keep us safe. That’s the way it is. Everything is monitored. But don’t you ever want to be free? Freedom and safety don’t balance well.”
“They use those sensors to catch killers and psychopaths,” said Phil, annoyed with the conspiracy. “It is to keep us safe.”
“Don’t you want to live dangerously?”
“I’m buying illegal tobacco from you,” said Phil, running his hand over the stubble on his throat. “I am living dangerously.”
“The government allows every import and export,” said Mary, “the illegal and legal. They know you are buying and they know I’m selling. They don’t care about tobacco. They only jail you for show. If you take this, they can’t get at you anymore.”
“Have you taken it?” Asked Phil.
“Yeah,” said Mary, “and I came down from it all right. It’s better than sex, man. Pure freedom.”
“But if they control import, how did you get it?” Asked Phil, his wide eyes darting around nervously. “Won’t they know?”
“Naw, man,” said Mary, “I make it myself. It’s got my DNA too.
Phil stared, eyes wide. “And… you’re sure that it will block the mind sensors?”
“That’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t block them, it just feeds ‘em nonsense and they don’t know what to do. When it gets both our DNA it can’t read either of us. But don’t worry, it’s not enough of mine to be a threat to me, just enough to make you… not readable.”
“Alright,” said Phil, hesitantly, “I’ll take it.” He opened his wallet. “How do I, you know, take it?”
“Put it in your eye,” said Mary. She handed Phil his purchases.
Phil stuck the slip of paper underneath his eyelid and took a deep breath. “OK, thanks. Next month?”
“Deal,” said Mary. “Enjoy yourself.”
“Right,” said Phil. He stepped out into the rain and had his first free thought.
by submission | Oct 20, 2012 | Story |
Author : Bruce Meyer
It could have been the simplest of conquests. One properly-placed shot and the rebel city would be nothing but ocean.
“I’ll sink ‘em all,” Lam said, his red face was projected as an image ahead of Enoch’s cockpit window. “I’ll blast the monsters to the sky. Give the word!”
Two spider-shaped fighters were dispatched to the floating metropolis. Lam’s hovered just off Enoch’s flank, powering low over a remote region of the Thalassinus Ocean. The target’s sleek and slender spires gleamed in the sunlight.
“Denied,” Enoch said. “Hold your fire. Survey the city first. I want to locate all inhabitants.”
“What?” Lam’s red deepened. “What will a survey do? We know right where they are. Those things are diseased! Dark energy has destroyed them. I vote we make them ocean garbage.”
“Prepare the survey,” Enoch said. “They may be diseased, but they’re still human beings.”
Although Lam argued, he eventually complied. After a time, he completed the survey. “Nobody’s down there. The place is deserted.”
“Yes,” Enoch said slowly. Even with Enoch’s years of experience, the readouts were unfamiliar. There were no life forms indicated, but the energy readings were off the scale. “We’ll search the city on foot.”
Lam argued all the while they lowered their vessels to the streets of the city. When Enoch secured the landing and opened the hatch, Lam was already there ahead of him.
“Commander, the towers, do you see them?”
Enoch saw houses and apartments. Then he followed Lam’s gaze to the slender structures rising miles into the air.
“They’re not buildings,” Lam said. “I think they’re particle accelerators, tearing the fabric of spacetime. The buggers are manufacturing dark energy, would ya believe it? Commander, we have to get out of here. We’re at risk-”
“Commander Enoch Frangin,” said a metallic voice from behind.
Enoch whirled around. Behind him stood the most gruesome creature. Its skin was like boiling mud, and its eyes glowed like two red lasers. Despite the terrible disfigurement, Enoch recognized the face of Dr. Carter Frangin, the lead rebel.
“Father?”
The monster reached out with his molten arm and touched his son’s shoulder. Repulsed, Enoch jumped back.
“Father, what have you become?” Enoch realized why their instruments hadn’t picked up anybody. They weren’t human anymore. “What has dark energy done to you?”
“Dark energy?” The monster’s speech resembled machines grinding without any oil. He held out his bubbling hand to his son. “It’s only by dying to your humanity that you can live. Give up your human weakness and be reborn in energy.”
Lam looked around at the multitude of creatures that had joined Dr. Frangin. He grabbed Enoch’s arm and pulled him away. “Commander, to the ships!”
But tears streamed down Enoch’s face. “I will never become like you-”
Dr. Frangin extended his arm to his son once more. “You already are, son, it just doesn’t show yet. You’re already infected.”
Enoch and Lam never made it to their ship. The eyes were the first to change, turning bloodshot and then fluorescent red. Splotches appeared on their faces and arms, spreading like insects burrowing into their bodies. Enoch and Lam joined the rebel ranks of the dark energy beasts.
by submission | Oct 19, 2012 | Story |
Author : Nathan Martin
Jev killed a cop. Technically, he pushed an undercover narcotics agent into an airlock and blew the outer hatch. Technically, it was the loss of pressure and lack of oxygen that killed the cop. Jev just pushed the button. Would’ve gotten away with it too, if the sun-burned corpse hadn’t made half a stable lap around the earth before smacking into Orbital Main station. Some luck.
He reached out and tapped a button on the console. The image on the main screen of Earth, slowly passing below him, blanked out. He was sick of looking at it. Six days since the launch, and still he sat there in his little ship, not quite ready to jet off. “Execution, or space mining,” they told him. It was an easy choice. Still, he missed the drugs.
He closed his eyes and stretched, unable to avoid brushing some portion of the ship’s interior no matter what angle he chose. When he was finished, he tightened his seat mesh to restrain his floating. He looked down at one of the screens; several windows were open, none of which were the tutorials he was to spend the next six months of flight time studying. A pop-up was on the screen, an override from Orbital Control. They were becoming more frequent, now that he was closer to overstaying his welcome. The latest pop-up informed him that he had, “12 hours 37 minutes 32 seconds to vacate Earth orbit or be terminated.” This one was bright red. He closed it and unhooked his seat mesh, floating free.
Grasping the overhead wall rungs, he moved hand over hand to the small cold box at the back of the cabin. He pulled out his last beer bulb, bit the tab off, and put the nipple in his mouth. He wondered if he was the first to drink the whole supply before leaving orbit. It was nice and dim in the cabin with the main screen off.
“Why am I still here?” He thought. “What the hell am I doing? I can’t go back down. There’s no way. I’d be dead as soon as I set the course.” He scratched the new tattoo on his wrist that marked him as a convict-miner. It itched. “I could say, ‘fuck asteroid mining, I’m going to Mars.’” He finished the beer bulb in two more gulps, and realized that he was speaking aloud; he hadn’t noticed the transition from thought. He continued. “They wouldn’t take me there, either.” The ships transponder was hardwired from the outside, marking him for what he now was.
He handed himself back over to the seat before the screen. There was only one thing left to do. He tapped a button and turned the screen back on. Earth burst over him, and he found himself missing it for the first time. Ice cream. Couscous with tomato sauce. Gravity.
“Fuck it,” he said. He tapped into the navigation system and activated the presets. The engine behind him began to roar, and he barely remembered to re-hook the seat mesh before he was tossed back into the cushions. Earth dropped out of view and was replaced by a slur of stars, drawing him away.
