by submission | Jun 19, 2025 | Story |
Author: Angela Hawn
“Ready to sing for your supper?” The head honcho in the antique army helmet flashes a toothy smile at our little group before acknowledging the wider audience. Applause ensues.
“Of course”, I say, channeling my storytelling grandmother whose entertaining melodrama once served multiple purposes: convincing me to sleep, to eat my vegetables, as a distraction from the sorry universe around us falling to pieces.
Helmet Head looks slightly rabid, a guy spoiling for a fight, clearly interested in wringing out the maximum without yielding much in return, someone who might view the spilling of blood not his own as fun.
“I understand you’re from the BH.77 system.”
Helmet’s eyes light up. I’ve hit the sweet spot. He’s perhaps a traveler himself, though likely a reluctant one. BH.77 has been at war for years; most residents with means fled long ago, leaving only the less fortunate to suffer yet another tyrant foolishly installed as leader.
“You’ve been?” He purrs.
“Just the Lypides sector, by moon 11.” Confidence in information secured via Helmet-hating spies blooms. I’m sure I’ve just described his old neighborhood.
Eyes widening with shock and pleasure, the sociopathic sheen dims a little. Is Helmet simply some ordinary Joe gone round the bend, courtesy of years spent in a war zone? Or perhaps even sociopaths need to hear of hearth and home occasionally.
“In fact, I’ve got a message from a Merdecia,” I continue, gently dropping the name of Helmet’s supposed soul mate into the mix, steadfastly ignoring the second lieutenant’s pet rat, scampering in stage left, up Helmet’s pant leg, straight onto his jacket lapel. Incredible how twinned microchips inserted in both the master’s and rat’s brains make these tricks routine. I have personally witnessed this rat steer a ship right through a meteor field, though I assume, of course, that the lieutenant was doing the bulk of the critical thinking.
Gripping Helmet’s collar daintily within tiny paws, the rat proceeds to nibble at the cord around his neck. So gentle, barely a tickle, safely hidden from the crowd. The goal: Helmet’s all-access keycard. My sole job: distraction, a task seized with a passion my story-telling grandmother would applaud.
“Merdecia sends her love, and naturally… her regrets.”
Helmet’s narrow, wolfish face above the rat’s urgent efforts pales. I smile sympathetically, rubbing my empty belly before glancing sorrowfully downwards.
“But I’m feeling faint with hunger, friend, could we not eat while I tell you more?”
One of the crew members collapses, swooning dramatically as per the previously discussed choreography, clutching my sleeve as he plummets. The woman on the other side catches him and throws him over her shoulder in an old-fashioned fireman’s carry, sprinting for the door behind us. This one needs a bed more than a dinner table, she shouts to the gaping crowd, and they can only nod and smile, paralyzed by the sight of their leader nonplussed.
With the prize gripped tightly between strong little jaws, the rat has already danced ahead. We need only surge through the dining hall entrance backward en masse, like the singular pod we’ve become, while Helmet remains lost, transfixed by memories of his beloved Merdecia.
The solitary cyborg among us, an obliging chap, will sacrifice an arm to jam the doors, knowing an engineer onboard will make him another from scrap collected along the way. As one who talks with his hands when he’s got both, he might one day wave them about as we relish in this new narrative, or even retrieve our latest storied escape to save us all again, should we encounter another entertainment-seeking Helmet Head, somewhere down the road.
by submission | Jun 18, 2025 | Story |
Author: Sasha Kasper
As the blaring siren assaults my eardrums, it becomes increasingly harder to deny my rapid descent. I float directionless through the cockpit. Up, down, left, right, have lost all meaning. The notion of gravity seems to me a cruel joke, of which the punchline will be my demise.
The tempered glass of the porthole window separates me from certain death by either asphyxiation or incineration. It also allows me to see the beautiful picture I am painting in the sky with my last moments.
Streaks of scarlet lick the side of the ship, fluttering like ribbons as I fall further into the atmosphere. The hull bends and breaks at odd angles, creating a cutting-edge abstract sculpture. The ephemeral beauty is tantalizing, yet does nothing to stop my transition from the inky blackness of space towards unforgiving terra firma.
When I was a boy, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut. My father constructed a rocket of cardboard boxes and sheet metal in the backyard, and every day held a new planet to discover. Nestled under the comforting shade of our weeping willow tree, I could go to Mars, Venus or Jupiter, and still be back in time for dinner.
In my teenage years we packed up and moved to a more urban environment. Our house was sold to an expanding corporation and we took the profits without looking back. The fates of my rocket and willow tree are unclear, but a grainy recollection of the solace they provided me is permanently fixed in my mind.
The siren suddenly ceases as the power finally gives out. I don’t know which was worse, the urgency of the alert or the deadly silence it’s been replaced by. At least with a siren one feels spurred into action, that there must be something that can be done to prevent disaster. Silence is far less forgiving. All that is left to do is accept fate, or reject it right to the explosive end. I choose to enjoy the ride rather than fight it. It’s a beautiful way down to the planet I love.
Birds flutter and entwine as they hop from branch to branch on a warm summer day. Fountains spray their refreshing mist, filling a basin for children to race their balsam sailboats in. Elderly couples recline with visors, basking in the sunlight and savoring their last stage of life. I intend to do just the same.
If any of them chance to look to the stars, they’ll see me writing my final poem across the heavens.
Myself, I’ve grown tired of the stars. I look down, through the porthole, to the luscious planet coming up to embrace me in her arms. I see a bed of wheatgrass flowing wistfully in a vibrant field, inviting me to take my final slumber among its proud stalks.
The fire begins to breach the hull. I feel myself fading, the smoke mounting to my head. Just before I lose consciousness I could swear that I spy scrap metal glinting from a clearing in the field. My eyelids droop woozily, and in my last moment of clarity I see the weeping willow tree majestically swaying, using its tendrils to guard the little tin rocketeer throughout his adventures through the cosmos.
by submission | Jun 17, 2025 | Story |
Author: Majoki
You’re in your pod and Qwee hides your stylus as a joke. You smack Qwee because there is no other response. Qwee loves it and moves on to hide another podmate’s stylus while you flag the incident with the podmaster. Just another day in the pod.
While swooshing home in the late diurnal warmth, Calpra convinces you to take a detour to the muffitti that’s just opened and you enjoy a very chill taeypop. So sweet, so lovely. You and Calpra sit under the towering susumos, their fragrance so tantalizing you want to climb one and take a bite. You tell Calpra that and you zozz together so hard that half your taeypop falls on the ground and a baby kekaltok darts out from the ori and tries to scoop it up with six wobbly limbs.
You and Calpra zozz harder and you want this time to never end. But the redness is deepening and you have podwork to complete. You nuzzle a goodbye to Calpra and swoosh home.
At mealtime, you want to tell your tssiss about your day, but their talk is all about the Yyesghi. You are tired of all their hushed and serious and anxious talk about the Yyesghi. You think Qwee is more troublesome than the Yyesghi will ever be to you, so you go off to finish your podwork.
Much later, as you are just entering fugue, your tssiss check on you. They haven’t checked on you in a long time. You think it is strange, yet endearing.
Deep in fugue, you experience secondsight. It is unsettling. Qwee is smoldering. Calpra is screaming. Your tssiss are fleeing from an inferno raging in the susumos. It is mayhem. Until you realize, it is the Yyesghi. They are burning everything with their flashers.
Kekaltoks flushed from the ori are being flattened by the invading Yyesghi, though a baby kelkatok just like the one that grabbed your fallen taeypop is not crushed. A Ysesghi picks up the trembling kelkatok and seems to offer it to you. This frightens you more than anything. Still, you take the little creature.
The Yyesghi soldier looks to you and then the kekaltok. You know what the Yesghi wants you to do. You know what is coming. Secondsight is not the future, it is not written. But this is. You clutch the kekaltok harder and harder and harder until the grim understanding of what war expects of you.
Secondsight leaves you. There is a terrible stillness. The moment before this day begins and peace ends.
by submission | Jun 15, 2025 | Story |
Author: Rachel Sievers
The strangeness of the moment could not be understated; the baby had been born with ten fingers and ten toes. The room was held in complete silence as everyone held their words in and the seconds ticked by. Then the baby’s screams filled the air and the silence was destroyed and the cries and caused a catalyst of movement in the room.
The doctors and nurses moved in quick succession as each tried to do something for the screaming baby and still not touch it. The new mother and father moved their heads so they could see what was going on as they exchanged worried glances. It was clear to everyone that there was no leadership or progress being made by any of the moving pieces.
The slamming of the doors drew everyone’s attention in the birthing suite and in came a team of six men. They were neither in civilian clothes or hospital uniforms and consisted of suites of black outer jackets and white button ups that covered them from tops to bottoms. Their eyes were covered in black glasses and atop their heads were matching fedoras.
“Who is in charge here?” The front man asked, reaching into his suit jacket with his foremost part. When no one replied to his question he drew his attention from his pocket where he took out a white piece of paper, and repeated his question, “I asked who is in charge here.”
Everyone looked around until a small doctor stepped forward. He held, in two of his parts, the tools of his trade, shaking with fear. Of the men or fear of the child, one could not know. “I am the head doctor,” he said but his voice was wobbled and full of unsure hesitation.
The suited man turned from the tense doctor to the couple on the bed, “are you the parents?” The couple nodded in unison. The baby still screamed in the corner frantically moving its useless two arms and two feet. The ten fingers and ten toes stood out as abominations on the ends of the four limbs.
The suited man nodded and then looked down at the paper he held. “In accordance with statute four section thirty-three we hereby take over jurisdiction of this hospital room.” There was an obvious sigh of relief from the hospital staff.
The parents of the crying child were still wide eyed as the man continued, “in accordance with the great book of Tritiya the abomination will be sent to the work camps to live out the remainder of its days serving in its limited ways.” Everyone, including the parents, in the room sighed in relief as the man read out this statement. He paused for a moment and nodded to one of the men next to him who grabbed a white sack and walked to the crying infant. Using large tongs, he lifted the baby and placed it into the white sack. Again, the room was notably relaxed. The baby still cried but not being able to see it seemed to put everyone at ease.
“Furthermore, in acting in good faith we give this couple the option to break their bond or to be sterilized so that no more abominations will be produced in their union.” Here the man in the suit looked at the couple who looked at each other.
A moment of understanding passed between them and then, “we would like to break our bond.”
The man nodded and then waved a man over who produced a tablet that both parents quickly tapped out a few buttons. “This completes our business. Any questions or concerns?”
No one spoke as the man looked at everyone in the small birthing room. He nodded and turned on his heel and marched out the room carrying the crying sack of white.
by submission | Jun 14, 2025 | Story |
Author: Jeff Kennedy
The first few days on a new starship are the worst. The gravity’s turned up a skosh higher than you’re used to. The hot, caffeinated, morning beverage (it’s never coffee) is mauve and smells like wet dog. The bathroom facilities don’t quite fit your particular species and the sonic shower controls are so complicated that you end up dirtier than when you started. After a few tours, you get used to making adjustments.
This rotation was no different. After his second dinner on-board, George asked about the evening meal’s main dish: an “interesting” stew filled with root vegetables and bits of oddly textured meat. There was a brief pause before the Bolons stood in unison and started a series of deep sobbing toasts to “the noble sacrifice of Brother Bob”. Thus began a round of official union-sanctioned mourning that left the ship at a standstill for three days.
This did not endear George to First Officer Boardman, the no-nonsense, zero-tolerance, pain-in-the-ass shift commander. George had never met Boardman face to face (not particularly unusual on a ship this size), but Boardman nevertheless made it very clear that he was not happy with George’s performance. Every morning, he filled George’s in-box with blistering emails and his task pad with mindless insulting jobs. Why did George need to count the blue shipping containers in storage bay three times last Tuesday? How many times do you need to mop down a holodeck before you finally ban certain parties from engaging in certain activities?
George decided it would be best if he just kept quiet and diligently worked the duty list each day, so he smiled and did just that, finishing tasks in record time, collecting missives of praise and support from the officers around him, but the nasty emails and crap job assignments kept coming. It felt odd to have an invisible nemesis.
Thursday morning, George stepped out of the shower, dropped his towel into the bin, and read his assignments from a task pad propped up on the bathroom vanity. Along with the usual mundane maintenance tasks (replace fuse in deck 5 medical scanner, validate deck 12 storage manifest, reboot deck 10 meal printer) was an oddity.
“Feed the cat. Deck 17. Cabin 23.”
George sighed and started the long trek down to deck 17.
When George arrived, he found the cabin door locked so he had to use his security key to get in. A gray tabby cat snoozed on the bunk.
“Rough life,” George muttered under his breath.
He rummaged through the junk on the desk, found a tin of cat food, and emptied it into a cheap metal bowl. The cat yawned, stretched, and rolled over. Mildly annoyed, George dropped the bowl to the floor with a loud clang.
The startled cat jumped to its feet and spoke in a commanding vibrato.
“What the hell are you doing in here!?”
The cat stood up on its back legs and smashed a button on the cabin control panel with a front paw.
“Security! This is the captain. There’s an intruder in my cabin. Send a team immediately.”
There was a brief kerfuffle in the hallway before two armed officers shoved the door open and burst into the captain’s cabin. The first officer in, leveled a charge pistol at George’s chest.
It was going to be a long trip. George could see a lot of litter box duty in his future.
