Lt. Ray

Author : Roi R. Czechvala

“You’re sure these ships are safe?” Admiral Chekov asked, as he cautiously approached the tiny matte black fighters. They reminded the Admiral of the ancient projectile points used by the aboriginal people of the Siberian steppes.

“Of course Sir,” the squirrelly little doctor rung his hands nervously on the hem of his formerly white lab coat. “The organics of these ships were chosen from among the finest of the volunteers in the psi-ops programs from all three states of the Great Union.” Here he paused deferentially. “The Mark VI Psi Fighter is unparalleled. Nothing the Alliance has can rival it. Not even the best equipment of our own fleet can track it.”

“I’ve read the specs, but give me a rundown of the operations.”

“As you’re aware, all pilots must be unmarried volunteers and score in the top three percentiles of their psionics exams. After an intense training and indoctrination period they undergo a procedure whereby the central nervous system is removed from the body and placed in the interface cartridge, the “brain box” if you will,” he smiled nervously at his joke. The Admiral did not smile.

These ships, though small, have the most powerful long-range friend/foe scanners available in the fleet. The pilots brain activity is routed through the PK, that is the psychokenesis amplifier, into the ranging equipment. The pilot analyzes the long range readings, identifies an enemy ship, matches coordinates, and makes a psychic jump. As near as we can tell, the speed of thought is almost instantaneous. The ship appears out of nowhere, unleashes a full salvo of 140 rounds of combined nuclear and solid projectiles, and returns. Since the entire ship is PK controlled, there is no need for a propulsion system. The only energy needed runs the onboard life support systems, and the PK amp.

In their off time, the pilots live in a virtual simulacrum of their own choosing, but of our making of course. That way it doesn’t become stale and predictable as it would had they created it.”

“What is this pilots name?” the Admiral asked, gesturing to the nearest fighter.

“Sir, most of the pilots prefer not to use their human names, and generally go by their designation number.” He pointed to a flat white stenciled marking on the side of the craft. “This is RY038. His name is First Lieutenant ‘Ray’.”

“Can he hear me?”

“I can hear you Admiral,” a dull monotone voice responded. The Admirals face did not betray the sudden shock he briefly felt.

“Where are you from son?” He felt a bit odd talking to a fighter ship.

“Gladewater Sir. Texas. State of America,” the ship responded in that same sharp metallic monotone.

“How do you like your…um…duty Lieutenant?”

“Beats the alternative Sir.”

The Admiral was startled. “And that would be what, Lieutenant.”

“I could be married Sir.”

The General suppressed a smile. “May I ask for a demonstration?”

“Of course sir. Excuse me a moment.”

The outlines of the small fighter blurred, and just as quickly refocused. The ship suddenly seemed to be giving off a great deal of heat. “SIR. Mission complete. Threat neutralized. Orbit Secured, SIR.” underneath the mechanical vocals there seemed to be the hint of a shortness of breath.

The Admiral stared for a brief moment unable to say anything. “But, but I didn’t say…”

“Begging the Admirals pardon, but the Alliance ship in GeoSync orbit above the Europa colony has been neutralized” Lieutenant Ray stated flatly.

“But…but…how, I didn’t…,” Admiral Chekov spluttered.

“I’m sorry Sir,” the little doctor intervened, “didn’t I mention they’re telepathic as well?”

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Nerve Sensors

Author : Pavelle Wesser

“I’m through with you, Taylor,” Geena said as she stomped down the street. She looked beside her; he wasn’t there. She turned to see he had fallen behind: “Taylor, did you hear me?”

He stared through her: “I want not your identity.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

The afternoon light cast a strange glow over his features: “I know not yet your world.”

“Man, you are weird.”

With that, Geena turned and left.

Taylor continued walking into the darkness. When the street lights went out, he entered a hotel.

“Our cheapest room is more than you can afford.” The check-in clerk stared meaningfully at his shabby clothes.

Taylor placed a wad of cash on the counter.

“Well then,” The clerk smiled, “I’ll have Jen take you up.”

“Follow me.” A pretty blonde led him down a hallway and opened his room door. He pushed her inside and pinned her against the wall.

“I need now your identity,” he said.

“Get off me, you freak.” It was the last thing she ever said.

#

Jen, normally upbeat, now approached guests stiffly, as though stricken with arthritis.

“Hello,” she addressed a man in her new robotic voice, “Follow me.”

She walked woodenly down the hallway and opened a door: “This being your room.”

“Why so formal?” the man squeezed her buttocks. “Don’t you know what a man wants from a woman?”

“I wanted nothing from my girlfriend,” said Taylor, his memory sensors picking up on a specimen titled Geena, who had been relegated to the ‘failed missions’ file.

“Girlfriend?” The man breathed heavily down her neck. “I bet you never had a guy before.”

“No, but I will add your identity to my database.” Taylor stated flatly.

“Man, you are a kook.” It was the last thing he ever said.

#

Taylor roamed the streets. A man with dark eyes and white teeth jabbed a knife into his side: “Gimme’ your cash.”

Taylor’s empty eyes stared at him: “I am needing your identity,” he said.

“I don’t remember giving you that option,” said the man.

“Your memory is fallible and my options are unlimited,” replied Taylor, as he gripped the knife’s handle and absorbed the man. He swaggered down the streets, then, for the first time getting into the groove of human emotive complexities.

“Gimme’ your money!” He brandished the knife at a woman.

She gasped: “You look like my ex-husband. Take all that I have.” She shoved her purse at him.

“Geena?!” Taylor added inflection to his voice pattern. “Long last have I learned what a man wants from a…” As he reached out for her, she screamed and ran.

Taylor smiled. The sensation tickled his nerve sensors, which whispered to him of coming missions with successful outcomes.

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>Search For Life

Author : Glenn Blakeslee

I was in the flight center when the first probe went out. The heavy lifter rose on the obligatory pillar of flame, tracked across the south sea, ejected its boosters, and achieved orbit.


I was still in the flight center when the probe left Earth orbit, bound for the outer planets. Damon was at the station next to mine, monitoring the telemetry for the coolant temperatures on the sunward side of the probe. Everything was nominal.


“Well, they’ve done it,” Damon said.


He was referring to the fact that this was the first of several probes designed and built completely by non-human systems. The agency that we worked for had developed, after two decades of work, a process in which machine intelligences developed subsystems, robot manufactories produced the system components from raw materials and assembled the spacecraft, and huge automated gantries delivered the payload, on the lifter, to the launch pad.


It was a boon to the rapid prototyping and delivery of inexpensive spacecraft. Redundancy made the whole deal relatively error-free, and as the intelligences always designed along similar lines, the cost was very low.


All we had to do, as humans, was to enter the basic parameters desired for the probe. In this case a single engineer sat at a terminal at the start of the process and typed in:


>search for life


#

Damon and I were in a bar in South Miami when the news came in.


He and I were both laid off, living on unemployment and free-lance telecom jobs in the greater Miami area. The launch systems and flight monitoring had been turned over to the machines, too, as the success of the machine-driven spacecraft development process had been proven.


The television over the bar displayed a single all-caps headline, “LIFE FOUND,” and Damon and I both watched the live, albeit delayed, feed from the successful probe.


The feed was high-definition and the detail was magnificent. On the screen was the sunlit limb of a planet, green-gold, the hazy shroud of the atmosphere thickening as it diminished toward the horizon. In the foreground was a chaotic scene: a large artificial satellite teeming with the rapid, frenzied activity of machines, their silver metallic carapaces glittering in the harsh sunlight.


“It’s the wrong damn kind of life,” Damon said.

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The Exhibit

Author : Summer Batton

“Oh look! They have grass ‘n water ’n little huts, too!” squealed the little girl as she ran to press her face against the glass and get a closer look.

“Milly, get back here!” demanded the Nurturer with a click of her tongue. “Don’t scare them. They won’t show themselves if you frighten them away.”

“Do you see ’em?” asked Milly, ignoring the command. Her eyes scoured the dimly lit grasslands that lay beyond the 2 inch glass wall. The glass seemed to slide into a stone slab on either side which formed into the tunnel through which all the tourist could pass by with their brochures and sticky treats to see the exhibit. The cage was illuminated by a greenish-blue light that gave Milly spots in her vision. A hand-painted sign to the right read: “Feeding Times: ⅜ Ω, ⅞ Ω, and ⅝ Ω”

“Nothing visible yet,” said the Nurturer. She turned to a lengthy paragraph in her brochure scouring it. “It says here that they are shy creatures that don’t like excitement…easily scared…and mostly inactive, even during the height of the outer lights.”

“Do they even let ’em out to see the outer lights?” Milly asked as she pushed harder against the glass and gazed up at the stone ceiling which appeared to be all part of the same walls, floor, and background.

“I don’t imagine they care about the outer lights. I’ve heard they don’t much like anything except eating and sleeping and are rarely awake long enough to notice anything except just that,” murmured the Nurturer who seemed to forget herself momentarily and pressed her own face against the glass hoping for a glimpse.

They both stood there for several minutes as if trying to summon the animals from their hiding through mind control. Presently, the Nurturer shook herself and said sharply, “Come, Milly. We’ll have to see other animals. They aren’t going to come out.”

“Awww, but this is why we came,” whined Milly, “it’s the most—”

There was a rustling behind her—even through the glass plate, Milly heard the distant sound of an ancient bamboo door climb up on its hinges and she croak open. Both Milly and the Nurturer waited—their breath momentarily ceased to fog up the glass.

Slowly, out he came; out on all fours—his belly swinging down low in between. He had a coarse brown hair growing around his head, in between his nose and mouth, and down his chin. He was naked except for several clay-colored smudges on his mane from where he’s slept. He descended down to a small stream that was herded through the grass by fake-looking rocks. Upon arriving at the water’s edge, he lowered himself again into a laying position and let his foot and tongue dangle into the water. His eyes closed again.

“Wow,” said Milly, “so that’s a Homo Sapien?”

“Apparently,” returned the other, “that’s it.”

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Prisoner

Author : Guy Leaver

For days I was kept there. Held prisoner within a tailored cage, unable to move a muscle. Incarcerated into solitary confinement, with only my thoughts and emotions for company. No food did they give me; I knew not how I was sustained. I knew only that with each passing day, I began to feel less and less. It began with my extremities. I struggled, but couldn’t move an inch. Nothing I tried to do did anything the stay the inexorable advance of sickly warmth. I wondered if I was being devoured by some foul creation of the invaders, my living tissue being dissolved to feed whatever vile beings lay beneath those terrifying suits of armour.

As the days went by, I grew accustomed to my fate, resigning myself to the fact that when the warmth reached my head, I would die. I was not afraid. I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. I worried only for my family; for my younger sister, and our baby brother. I wondered if they had survived, if they had fled into safety. When the invaders had come, the people of the village had been given no warning. Despite their towering suits of armour, the terrible beings somehow managed to get within the confines of the settlement unnoticed. Only ten… and yet, they destroyed everything in their paths. Implacable juggernauts carving flesh and stone with long energy swords. The people panicked. Those who could, fled into the forests, and those of us brave enough to fight charged at the looming machine-people, anger in our eyes, and fire in our hearts.

The last thing I remember was running towards our enemy, weapon drawn, ready to defend my home. But the screams…oh God, the screams. The very memory of such a sound chilled all but the inflicted parts of my body. Still, it is torture to my soul. As the being facing me down emitted the dreadful cry, I felt myself convulse; in horror, and in revulsion. My last memory of being free is seeing all my fellow warriors, my comrades, my friends, panic and fall about themselves in loathing and fear, as the other invaders took up their terrible battle cry.

I was a warrior. It would take worse things than death to break my spirit. As I felt the warmth creep over my face, I felt sick. I was filled with hatred for the plague upon our world that was our attackers, and I took solace in the fact that soon I would be dead. But as I finally felt my body fully succumbing to the transformation I had been subjected to, I was not greeted with death. Instead, I felt sensation flow back through my body, and light poured into my prison, blinding me. For an instant, I thought I was going to be free again.

Then I felt myself moving, but it was not of my doing. In a moment of shock, I realised that I was not in control of my own movements, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, I trembled at what I saw. In front of me was a battlefield. Another settlement was being attacked by the invaders. As I watched, a man came running towards me, screaming a battle cry, and wielding a weapon. In horror, I felt my arm move to intercept him, and I saw him cut in half by a long energy sword. The burning, the cracking his bones, the flow of his blood…feeling rushed up my arm.

I screamed. Oh God, how I screamed.

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