by Julian Miles | Oct 28, 2025 | Story |
Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer
Shess comments into the mike.
“Are you not bored with blowing stuff up?”
Ralf hollers back.
“Aw hell no. What else is there to do out here on a weekend?”
I hear Shess whisper.
“Watch the stars, drink, eat, play Konane…”
Far to our left, just over the horizon, something blows up in a ‘hit to the armoury’ kind of way.
“Didja see that? One Ritmarfo cruiser that’ll never return to the stars.”
I lean back and beckon for Shess to do likewise.
“Hey, did you do what you said?”
She nods.
“I made the call, but I’m counted as ‘deployed alien allies’. There’s a lot of sympathy, but nothing can be done until locals speak up.”
Directly above us in LEO the battleship ‘Hammerstorm’ comes apart as a Ritmarfo counterstrike gets through.
How many of ours just died?
How many of theirs moments ago?
What exactly did it settle?
I activate my mike.
“Hey, Ralf, how many did Command say we need to take down before peace talks will start?”
“Last I heard they’d gone back to ‘until we clear our skies of Ritmarfo scum’, or words to that effect. The peace initiatives will never take off. You need trust for those, and there’s been too much bloodshed to forgive. Civilian protests can’t compete against military paranoia and every trooper seeking revenge for lost friends.”
He might be a bit of a berserker, but he sees clearly in ways I can’t.
A series of smaller explosions beyond the horizon trail up into the atmosphere. Just as I think the show’s over, a colossal fireball lights the sky at the head of that blast trail.
“Woohoo, that’s one of their Colossi that’ll be taking no more lives.”
Shess cuts in.
“That was a Type 9: a medical Colossus.”
Ralf snorts.
“Command said those are covers for stealth ops. Better to be cautious than k-.”
Comms break up as a daylight briefly erupts behind us. By the time they stabilise again, we already know that Command Base Shafter has been devastated.
How many-?
Will knowing help reduce the toll?
I lean back and gesture to Shess again.
“What do I need to say?”
“Ask for help. Tell them why you think it necessary.”
“I’ll do it.”
She gives me a long stare, then fiddles with a device around her neck. After speaking rapidly in Nactorisi for a minute or so, she nods to me.
“This is Corporal Bell Reave of United Earth Strike Force One requesting Peace Action because Humanity and the Ritmarfo are too entrenched in cycles of vengeful slaughter to ever stop without one side being eradicated.”
Shess smiles. Minutes pass.
A booming voice comes from the speakers.
“This is a Peace Action. If you hear this, cease all war activities. Look up.”
Something appears above. A ship? It’s black and white and must be over a hundred kilometres wide… No, long: it’s a gigantic cigar shape, and it’s got little silver and gold triangles hurtling about it. No, wait. Those are squadrons of somethings!
I look at Shess.
“This is what you meant by ‘our petty warring’, didn’t you?”
She nods.
“There is always a greater power. You go far enough and they’re either indifferent or benign. Evil powers consume too much to last. Greed is nothing but a primitive tool that evolved societies have moved on from.”
I glance back at the behemoth above.
“I guess there are still a lot of societies that need help doing it?”
She nods.
“This one will for a while. It’s part of growing up, and now you can start.”
by Stephen R. Smith | Oct 27, 2025 | Story |
Author: Steve Smith, Staff Writer
Kurtis woke into near darkness, which itself was unusual. Oh four hundred on the button, his body clock having sync’d to local time when he got here a few days ago. His bloodstream was already coursing with adrenaline and the usual cocktail of morning wakeup drugs, which was also evidence of a problem as he wasn’t scheduled to wakeup for another two hours.
Something was happening. An incursion of some kind? Hit squad? The fact it was on the hour suggested a military washout squad, as this is the kind of amateur scheduling he’d expect at that level, not being random enough for actual professionals.
He was on his feet now, boots lacing themselves as he shouldered into his jacket and then became motionless, still as stone listening through the ambient sounds of a several hundred year old mid-rise for the sounds that didn’t belong.
Boots, in a stairwell on the other side of the bathroom wall, maybe two floors, no three floors down, walking softly but steady.
He’d miss breakfast, which he’d been really looking forward to. Someone was going to answer for that.
He moved slowly, but surely, footsteps in a staggered, nearly silent anti-pattern to the bathroom door, the creaking of the floor blending into the building’s background noise, and waited.
The footsteps on the other side of the wall grew clearer, four bodies, the familiar sound of strapped weapons straining on tethers, the breathing of men accustomed to exertion, the regular pause at the landings to check sitelines.
Kurtis opened fire through the wall as they stopped at the door on his floor, reducing the lath and plaster wall to dust in a firehose of high calibre anticipatory violence. When the noise stopped, he moved from the room to the hall, to the door at the top of the stairs, roughly shouldering it open to survey the carnage.
Nobody was left moving.
He stepped over the bodies and worked his way cautiously eleven floors to the ground. It would be some time before his hearing would have settled to provide much advance notice, so he relied on caution and his other senses. On the street a RoboCargo van sat in the loading zone. He wondered how long it would wait before abandoning its hold pattern and returning home. He climbed inside, sirens approaching from a distance. Breakfast would have to wait. Best not be here when the authorities arrived, besides, someone just tried to kill him, and he was going to hitch a ride back to find out exactly who and ensure they would not try that again.
by submission | Oct 26, 2025 | Story |
Author: Philip Ekstrom
She walked into the donut shop looking like a daffodil. Yellow blouse, light green slacks, standing straight and tall with a quiet presence that looked the world straight in the face. She stepped aside to let others pass as she scanned the room.
Her gaze momentarily rested on me, then moved on. When she finished looking once at everyone, she frowned and started another scan. Ending her second try, the flower wilted and she turned to leave, then turned back and walked up to the counter.
A minute later, cup and donut in hand, she turned to survey the crowded room again. There weren’t many free seats so I waved her over to my table. I had waited half an hour for the guy I was supposed to meet and had been about to leave, but she looked interesting.
“I guess I missed my pen-pal”, she said.
“Oh?” I said, “Please tell.”
“I belong to a letter-writing club. We send actual, carefully constructed sentences written out by hand on real note paper. No pictures. It’s the exact opposite of texting. I even bought a fountain pen. I’m here to finally meet the one I write to, but I’m late and she must have left.”
She looked hard at me. ”With your red hair I thought you might be her, but you are a guy.”
I had trouble keeping a straight face. This was too good to be real.
“You must be looking for Taylor Partridge.”
“You know her?”
“I’m Taylor Partridge.”
“But…’
“I get that a lot, with Taylor Swift splashing our name all over the news. You must be Jordan Jones, but not a guy like I was expecting.”
We both laughed.
“This is going to be fun.”
by submission | Oct 25, 2025 | Story |
Author: Richard Simonds
John Jorgensen had won. No other word for it. He was the richest, most powerful man in the world. Shares of SuperAI had gone up 500% the day before as they had finally cracked the super intelligence barrier and released the code to the public. What it meant, he wasn’t sure, and wasn’t sure he cared. Some predicted greater prosperity, a golden era for humanity, some the end of the world. Just in case it was bad, when he was working on the source code ten years prior, as a joke to himself, he had put in “Do not kill John Xavier Jorgensen.” He wasn’t even sure it was still there, but it made him feel better.
100 trillion dollars. He was the richest man in history. His net worth was greater than the GDP of Germany.
He was staying in the Presidential Suite at the Lux Hotel in Washington, D.C., the next morning after the announcement. He had put in a breakfast room service order for 8:00 the night before. He liked to use it as a sort of alarm clock, but it was 8:30 now when he woke up anyway and there was no food. “Damn hotel,” he said to himself, calling room service. No one picked up. “Damn hotel.” But what really got him swearing was when he turned on his laptop and couldn’t get to the Internet and then his phone couldn’t connect either.
He threw some clothes on and decided to head down to the lobby to scream at the manager. The elevator worked but he was shocked to see there was no one at the front desk, in fact there was no one in the lobby at all. “Where the hell is everyone,” he said out loud, and then he went outside and there was no one out there too and then a car pulled up and he felt relief until two of the AI robots his company had created got out, killed him with a blow to his skull, threw him in the back and drove off. His final thought before he died wasn’t the irony of possibly being the simultaneously the richest and poorest person who had ever lived, but what an idiot he was thinking that line of code might save him.
by submission | Oct 24, 2025 | Story |
Author: Sandra Meaders
Tatiana crept out through the night with a green pack on her back and a gun in her hand. The gun felt heavy and rigid. Her fingers streamed with sweat despite the cold air whipping at her long blond hair. She placed the gun down and pulled out a black knit cap from her coat’s pocket. She tucked her hair into the hat then knelt down on the cold dirt to grab her gun. She stood abruptly then hurried to the dusty road and started walking. Other figures crept out of shadows from buildings and doorways and joined her. In long bumbling lines and rows, they gathered and marched through the night. The man on the moon watched them from his seat in the sky.
“It’s a full moon tonight,” said a voice.
The voice was promptly shushed, and they marched onward. The group crept toward a bridge. In the distance, they could hear the rattle of weapons and the hum of missiles.
No one spoke as they crouched and waited. The moon seemed to peer down on them and move closer, growing bigger, and brighter. The crackle of weapons and rumbles drew nearer. With each minute the sounds grew louder and more distinct.
“Hold your ground, no matter what,” rumbled a deep voice.
The moonbeams danced in the night with the continued rumbling. The earth started shaking.
Tatiana whispered a prayer and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She continued muttering and whispering a prayer. Her prayer started echoing in the lips on neighbors next to her and it rippled through the group until every man and woman muttered the prayer over and over again.
The earth rumbled and groaned with the movement of large vehicles clunking toward them. Closer and closer the enemies traveled towards them. Tatiana’s cheeks wetted with tears, and she continued whispering her prayer. The sweat dribbled from her hair line and mingled with her salty tears.
The starlight and moonbeams glistened and sparkled on the heavy machinery moving towards them. Men marched alongside the machinery with guns cocked in their hands, ready to fire. Tatiana rested her finger on the trigger when the moonbeams and starlight twisted and swirled around the enemy making their bodies and machinery glow at an unnatural iridescent light. The men screamed and the machinery groaned as they were sucked into the moonlight. The moonlight retreated and the man on the moon swallowed them whole.
Tatiana sank on her knees and sobbed through praises of thanks and gratitude as the men and women around her scratched their heads and looked up at the moon in wonder.
by submission | Oct 23, 2025 | Story |
Author: Alastair Millar
“How many victims?” This was the fifth case in under a month, and Commissioner Jones was apparently taking an interest; he’d come down to the scene in person.
“Four, sir. Three here, one in the consulting room,” said the keen but clearly nervous field officer.
“Alright, walk me through it.”
“Same MO as last time sir,” she said. Good grief, thought the senior man, she could be my daughter. Or even granddaughter. “Our perp came into the waiting room, ignored the two synths there to make the place look busy, and headed over to the welcome desk.”
“Probably saw what they were straight away.”
“How sir? These are public security models, they look entirely human. The doctor had been taking precautions since the Neo-Luddite riots last year.”
“Contact lenses seeded with ultra-high efficiency upconversion nanoparticles, Sergeant. Special ops use them. If you’ve got the money and know a well-connected black marketeer, you too can see how cold synths are in infrared.”
“Didn’t know that, sir.”
“We try not to advertise it,” he replied drily, “in case people get ideas. Anyway, then what?”
“He said something to the bot, and didn’t like the answer.” The receptionist had been a more traditional, metal-faced mechanical. “He got animated, and the clankers stood up to intervene. Then he pulled out an EMP-pulser and nixed all three. Took out the surveillance net at the same time – the control box is in the ceiling about our heads.”
The Commissioner rolled his eyes. “Stupid place to put it.”
“Yes sir. He accessed the doctor’s office using the manual door override. It’s stuck dilated open.”
“So I see.” They walked through into the next room. It was a mess. He could see that the physician was a Lopez-Bannerji 56c – a skilled, top-end model, its innards shielded from electromagnetic radiation.
“Didn’t use an EMP here.”
“No sir. Looks like he had an electric paralyser to overwhelm the metallic Faraday filaments in the fakeskin, and fried everything inside.”
“Mmmm. A standard 200K volter would do that.”
“Yes sir. Then he took a hammer to its head.” Flying fragments had damaged the diagnostics equipment nearby. The body was irretrievable, the brain clearly beyond recovery. “Very thorough. Someone with a grudge, probably. Clearly strong too.”
“Facial rec?”
“No sir. Disruptive makeup and prosthetics, we think. But we’ve started checking which local construction and work crews have been replacing real people, just in case.”
“Excellent. Well, I can see you have things covered. Carry on, Sergeant. I’ll see myself out.”
Once on the street, he exhaled. Folks were being put out of work by units not even made here, he mused, and opposition to their kind being allowed in at all was growing. But what did the government do? Move incidents like this up from ‘property damage’ to ‘murder’, that’s what. Not surprisingly, those opposed were starting to take a stand. Still, there were no clear leads or ID today; the assassin was a careful professional, and it looked like they were going to get away with it.
Meanwhile… ‘Real people’? ‘Clankers’? A bit of sympathy for the attacker there, perhaps? He’d have to keep a quiet eye on his junior colleague. Perhaps subtly suggest to her that cops were in line to be replaced next; K9 units had already gone robotic, after all. The resistance could always use new friends. A happy thought.
He smiled, made a mental note to pass on congratulations for a job well done both to her and to the Organisation, and headed for his groundcar.
