by submission | May 5, 2021 | Story |
Author: David Barber
“Each generation the Enemy returns to our skies,” the Morale Officer had told them. “This time, Earth looks to you.”
Hari remembered all the things wrong with that speech. The Enemy craft returned every 17.4 years, which was not a generation. And even 17.4 years was only the average interval, sometimes it was more, sometimes less. Hari had wondered if it followed a Poisson distribution.
But then the veteran had stood up, studying their faces silently.
Hari’s squadron was just off shift, running interceptor simulations. Her intense gaze unsettled him.
“When I served here,” she began. “The Enemy came early. Caught us napping.”
Hari knew she did not mean this, he’d learned it was something people said about being unprepared.
The woman shook her grey head. “We let one through and it cost us India.”
India had been two cycles ago. If she was in her fifties now, she had been a teenager then. They tried all sorts over the years. First it was pilots with combat experience. Then teenagers with sharp reflexes. Then gamers.
Tests had picked up Hari at school, like the rest of his squadron. He glanced round the room. Everyone wore badges so he knew their names, though they hadn’t spoken much in the months since deployment into orbit.
Hari liked the veteran because she focused on facts.
The Enemy wasn’t like a comet with a predictable orbit. Hari nodded at this. Unpredictable, like people. Perhaps it would turn up early again, hoping to catch them asleep.
“But it’s coming soon,” she had warned. “More probable every day.”
What she told them was common knowledge, but Hari found himself leaning forward, ticking off each fact.
“The Enemy always appears beyond the orbit of the moon. It folds space, we think. If it jumped in closer, we wouldn’t stand a chance. But their tech has limits. Perhaps they can’t handle steep gravity wells.”
She’d shrugged. Perhaps hers had been the cohort of really smart people.
“And the Enemy has adapted. We got in nuclear strikes once, now it destroys missiles.”
She trailed off. “It’s down to you. And I know what happens if you get it wrong.”
The MO had hustled her away after that.
The Enemy had appeared a week later. There was 80 minutes to closest approach. Strategically placed Attack forces were already engaging the vast craft.
Hari had listened to the comms traffic. Particle beams the Enemy used to clear debris from its path had been upgraded since last cycle, whole squadrons incinerated without getting off a shot.
It seemed obvious they should disperse, and Hari fled his Defence squadron.
The new X-ray lasers had little effect on the Enemy, but the payloads it released towards Earth were vulnerable. They came in patterns Hari recognised from simulations, and it became a blur of one silent explosion after another.
Eighty two minutes later, the Enemy folded out. The last blip on Hari’s screen took two shots, already on the edges of the atmosphere.
The rest of his squadron had obeyed orders and were vaporized. There was no dodging particle beams except by being were they were not.
“We now think it’s a robot probe,” Hari began. “With payloads of nanotech to colonise worlds. It’ll keep coming back until it succeeds. Or we destroy it.”
Hard to meet the gaze of these young pilots, so he stared at the back wall. The new giant Laser Cannons were not their concern. Defence must focus on stopping payloads getting through.
They hung on his every word, this 82 minute war veteran, whose initiative had become a byword for survival.
by submission | May 4, 2021 | Story |
Author: K. A. Williams
“You’ve got to try this new restaurant called Next,” my first mate Tim had said to me this morning. “I went there last night after we docked, while you were at that corporate captains’ dinner. I’ll meet you there for lunch.”
I read the menu in the transparent glass surface of the table while I waited. When Tim never showed up I called him on my wrist communicator. “Where are you?”
A tiny image of his face appeared. “Loading supplies onto the ship. Almost done. Try their sushi. I had it last night. It’s great. Order me the sushi and iced green tea.”
“All right.”
Four identical blue-skinned humanoids with red hair spikes entered. The one in front turned to the others, said “Duf blist eck gor rak shast sed ach kak sku krig cre tonk riv sca tik,” and clicked its teeth together.
The device in my ear translated, “That human was stupid. He traded me a new translator for one of my hair spikes.”
They saw me, raised their eyebrows in unison and bowed their heads.
Must be a greeting. I did the same and they sat at the table next to mine.
The waiter finally came. No expression on his face or in his eyes. Android.
A buzzing circled my head, then stopped.
The waiter opened his mouth and something slapped the top of my head. He closed his mouth and swallowed. Alien.
“Can’t have bugs in a restaurant.”
The blue-skinned aliens clicked their teeth.
I gave him Tim’s order and asked, “What’s sushi?”
“Rice and raw seafood. It’s very popular.”
“Okay, double the order.”
The waiter returned before Tim arrived and I was hungry. He had brought our tea and a covered silver platter. I lifted the lid and something leaped onto my face. I pulled it off and waved the tiny octopus at the waiter. “Hey! I’ve changed my mind, I want this cooked.”
The waiter was heading toward me but almost got run over by a huge octopus that rushed out of the kitchen area on two tentacles, gesturing with the other six. He gargled something my translator didn’t understand.
“What’s he saying?” I asked.
“Give me back my daughter, human,” the waiter translated.
“Daughter?!” I tossed the small octopus at him and she landed on his chef hat. “What was she doing on the platter?”
“Eating. She’s supposed to stay in her nursery behind the kitchen but won’t. She must have gotten inside the platter when I wasn’t watching and someone put the lid on.”
Tim arrived then. He passed the aliens at the next table who were clicking their teeth. “Why are they doing that?”
I shrugged.
He sat down and regarded the empty silver platter with a frown. “Couldn’t you have left me some?”
“I didn’t eat it, she did.” I pointed at the baby octopus sitting on top of her father’s chef hat.
The father gargled.
Tim nodded and the octopi went into the kitchen.
“You understood that?”
“Sure. Something wrong with your translator?”
“It doesn’t work on marine languages.” I planned to buy a new one at this space station.
“He said that since his daughter had eaten our sushi, he would fix us another platter and our meal was on the house, and he also thanked you for not eating her.”
“He’s lucky I didn’t want live seafood.”
by Julian Miles | May 3, 2021 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
I used to watch the fireflies, seeing how they flitted and settled. They seemed to go everywhere, but never intruded on the air above the still waters of the mere. Just like the fireflies above that mere never strayed anywhere else.
As time went by, I noticed the fireflies of the mere were unusual in other ways: appearing all year round being the main thing. I also came to the strange certainty that there were a fixed number of them. But I found a peace like nowhere else, sitting on the shore of the mere and watching those fireflies gather near me.
Before I could follow up on the strangeness, the onset of puberty and life in general distracted me. Thus it was many years before a breakup led to a trip home and an evening of melancholy. As heartache often does, it sought nostalgia to dwell upon: my memories of the fireflies.
Which is why I found myself sitting on the shore of the mere tonight, watching as the fireflies came closer.
They seem quicker. Eager, even. But the peace is still here.
“Bertha.”
I lurch to my feet, spinning to put my back to the water. I’d prefer a wall, but this will have to do. The eerie light of my flying companions shows me very little, until he moves.
“Dunc. What are you doing here?”
I know, but I need him to acknowledge it, or confirm my worst fears – or both.
“You never brought me here. You talked about it, but never invited me. So I invited myself. You know, to be with you. To be us, in your special place.”
He comes closer.
Both, then.
“Dunc, we’re over. It wasn’t working.”
“For you! Not for me!”
He’s got a knife! Too far to anywhere from here. That’s part of the appeal. This isn’t good.
“What’s with the knife, Dunc?” Keep the tone casual.
He looks at it. Then looks at me, at the mere, and smiles.
“Thought we could go together, you know? Show them we had something special.”
His other hand dives into a pocket, emerging with a crumpled envelope.
“Did us a letter. So they’ll know. They’ll all know, those sad fucks who said I was bad for you. They’ll know and be sorry they didn’t have what we had.”
His obsessive streak appealed to me at the start. Big mistake. How do I…?
“Dunc, let’s go get a drink. We can talk about things.”
“No! The time for talking is over. You said that.”
I did.
“So it’s time for action.”
The knife comes up as he steps towards me. I back into the mere. Maybe it’s got a drop-off: I’ll disappear before he gets me.
I’m still backing up. He’s in the water too. It’s only up to my knees.
“Help.” It’s whisper, but it’s the best I can do.
Fireflies dive into the water. A glow spreads between me and Dunc, getting stronger with each bug that hits. He wades straight into the glowing patch, then stops.
He drops the knife. Reaches for me. It’s not hostile. It’s pleading. His eyes start to glow. He topples into the luminous water and sinks from view.
The fireflies come out of the water. They’re brighter. One hovers right in front of me. A gem-like body, shining wings that don’t move, and eyes like orbs of mercury.
A reedy voice. Hissing, crackling.
“Never come into the water alone. We’d have no choice.”
I sprint from the place, screaming my thanks.
It’ll still be peaceful.
But never for me.
Not now.
by submission | May 2, 2021 | Story |
Author : Brenatevi
Stuart was sitting on his couch, munching on orange-colored cheese-like puffs, and watching some horrible show on TV. No, wait; sitting didn’t exactly describe what he was doing. Slouching was maybe halfway there, but even then it doesn’t properly convey Stuart’s laziness. Stuart indolently ambled towards laziness and gave up before reaching it. Online TV was the altar that he would have worshiped on, except that would have required a job to pay for it, so he accepted network TV.
It was during a commercial break (a product that allegedly guaranteed to get anyone off the couch) that the lights came for him. It began with a slight electric charge in the air, just enough to cause the hairs to stand up on the neck. Then there was a flicker in the lights that was accompanied by multicolored motes of dust. Stuart noticed none of this, so the lights decided that it would skip to the main attraction: a blinding beam shot through his front door with such force that it was knocked off its hinges. The beam unceremoniously yanked him through the doorway. He was unconscious before he was out of his house.
Stuart’s awakening was just as abrupt.
“Congratulations from the Galactic Publishing Clearance House! You are the final winner from Earth of a one-way ticket to the refugee center on Omicron Omicron Omicron!”
Stuart attempted to roll his head around to see who was speaking, but he felt like he was frozen solid. Then the speaker came into view; a little gray man that could not have been the source of the booming voice danced a little patter, before letting out yet another announcer-like bellow.
“Now before you try asking any questions, I have some terms and conditions that you need to know. Number one: you are currently in a form of stasis because we’re about to warp to the wonderful OOO, and otherwise you would projectile vomit. Number two: you don’t need to talk because I have conversational precog, so I know what you’re about to say before you do!”
Then Gray made a conspiratorial aside, “Wonderful power you are about to think, but you try having this power while having three hundred wives and you would be begging to be sent to the asshole of the universe.
“But I digress because we have condition three: your planet is about to be turned into atomic ash! Yes, your world leaders have lost their ever-loving minds, and have decided that mutual self-destruction was the only way out! You are one of the last humans to exist! With that in mind, you are going to live out the last days of your life among the offspring we’ve genetically reconstructed from the DNA we’ve been stealing from you your entire life!”
The horror that was creeping into Stuart’s mind compared nothing to the soul heave that was the jump through warp.
“Yes, you’re doomed to be a zoo animal, along with the rest of your progeny, but think of this: sex with aliens. Yes, you can do the multi-appendage limbo with aliens from all across the galaxy!”
There was a lurch as the spaceship landed, and then a thunk as the door that Stuart didn’t know he’d been facing opened. What he saw outside that ramp made him thankful that he was still in stasis: there was a multi-limbed creature, with multiple mobile lumps that looked vaguely familiar crawling over it. Then it spoke.
“There’s your daddy!”
by submission | May 1, 2021 | Story |
Author : Christopher Edelen
Elly was on her way home from work, anxious to arrive. The light rail had never seemed slower, but the week was finally over. She was excited to get home and play with her toys. It will be like looking through her mind! she thought, excitedly.
Sure, she didn’t have an original drive. She had a clone, but it was authentic enough. The tech was super vintage. A genuine 5400 rpm 2.5 inch HDD, imaged with a compilation of Octavia Butler’s real hard drives from centuries ago.
The process of finding a way to open the drive had been twice as fun as finding the drive. Elly wanted the experience to be as authentic as possible. She wanted to root through the files the way Octavia would have, to look at the same GUI. She found a way through the friend of a friend.
This dude Zari had sold her a SATA connection adapter that would connect the drive to her in home system, leaving her with only the obstacle of running a 300 years old OS. Luckily, she had asked him about that too. It turned out he was also into vintage info. He pointed her in the direction of an emulator that was compatible with most in home system software. Over the week Elly spent her evenings getting the emulator installed and running. Now all she had to do was boot the virtual machine from the clone of Octavia’s drive, and she could spend the weekend meticulously combing through a brilliant life and mind. Sheer ecstasy.
Elly got off the light rail and walked the three blocks to her building. Somehow, as a result of installing the virtual machine for that ancient OS, her in home system started asking her to authenticate her thumb readouts before she could get into her apartment, but she’d fix that later. She opened the door and set her bag, and her body, down on the couch.
“Run Obselemulate.” She commanded aloud. Her in home system brought up its holographic interface. It launched the emulator, bringing up a holographic keyboard and mouse. Elly got up and fetched the hard drive from her safe. She walked over to the apartment’s i/o panel and plugged it in with the adapter Zari had sold her. Inside the emulator she launched OS XI, using “Octavia’s HD.”
The smile lit up Elly’s face. This was fantastic. Always systematic, Elly launched the earliest drive first. These earlier images were often more fruitful, Elly found. Made in the days when computers stored correspondence locally. After all, human correspondence, human characteristics made the drive worth going through. She sat back, letting her body melt into the couch. This is going to be a good night, she thought.
by submission | Apr 30, 2021 | Story |
Author : Canis Mortuus
His dusted eyes ached while opening. Heavy clouds hung over the unfamiliar, monotonous grey wasteland which was surrounding him. He had no idea how he got there and couldn’t even recall his own name…
The dusty grey desert stretched flat as far as eye could see. Here and there some concrete ruins protruded from the dust like broken fangs. The wind blew incessantly, whistling on rusted metal bars and carrying clouds of grey dust.
He found an old pouch lying next to him. Hidden inside was a metal cylinder with a single red button and two bright yellow labels. He wiped off the dust and read:
“EMP-2 ELECTROMAGNETIC GRENADE”
The second label, on the other side of the cylinder proclaimed: „Warning! Possible brain damage. Use only as a last resort.”
He put the cylinder back into the pouch, grabbed it and turned around the nearest wall. What he saw made him fall back into the dust, terrified.
In front of him lay a horrific creature – a nightmarish parody of a rat or monkey of some type. It was bald and skinny, grey as the dust in which it was dwelling. Its elongated body was completed by abnormally long and thin tail, resembling an umbilical cord. Its four sinewy paws were armed with long, black claws. The miniature head looked nearly human if not for the long snout with many triangular teeth. From within the sunken eye sockets two dark eyes were staring at him. The creature was dead.
He stood up slowly. There were more corpses of similar creatures everywhere around. Suddenly he heard something in the whistling wind. Something like hoarse voice screaming. Above distant concrete wreckage he saw another rat-like creature staring at him with cold hatred. It whistled another howl and jumped closer…
He was fleeing blindly, hearing the patter of many clawed paws just behind him. The creatures were communicating in some sort of grating language of growls and croaks. They were almost upon him.
Rushing forward, he fell into shallow, oblong cavity. There were remnants of walls still protruding from its edges. When he got up from the dust, he was already ambushed. The creatures were staring at him, coming closer one by one. The boldest of them sprung like a shot with its claws outstretched. Dodging aside he felt a wrench followed by a sharp pain in his left shoulder. He grabbed the pouch, took the cylinder out and placed it in front of him. Hesitatingly he pressed the button. It started blinking red and a high pitched sound grew from within the device. Suddenly the sound went quiet and the air around him vibrated. He fell into darkness…
His dusted eyes ached while opening. Heavy clouds hung over the unfamiliar, monotonous grey wasteland which was surrounding him. He had no idea how he got there and couldn’t even recall his own name…
